Floods!

When you say it is not long rose you are probably talking hundreds of years - in the meantime - do we do as Nero?

No!! It would be interesting to know about long-term plans, not just flood defences that may be overwhelmed.

Thank goodness about the next ice age - I thought I heard somewhere it could be in about 10 years' time.

Here is an interesting article written for a general audience that explains some of the factors and the complex interactions between them.
There is lots of good science involved but it is incredibly complex. Meteorology, oceanography, research into paleobiology and ice cores to name but a few areas.
There is an extraordinary high level agreement in the scientific community about global warming, with just a tiny number of academics making a name for themselves as dissenters (when it comes to causes of recent warming). The science is rock solid: more CO2 has always = a warmer planet. How and where ice sheets form and melt and how the ocean and weather patterns contribute is the complex area most are trying to understand.
My DH is doing his PhD in one tiny aspect of all this and although his brain is coping with the details of his one little aspect the maths is so far beyond me... About as far as A level maths is beyond a normal 4 year old. (I speak as someone who tried and failed to pass A level Pure Maths)
In a previous business role he sometimes tried to explain relatively simple stuff, to do with heating and insulation of houses, to civil servants and ministers. Head, brick wall etc. They are not, typically, at all technically minded or interested in things technical or scientific.

Ive included a photo of some Arctic islandica clam shells I collected earlier. Chestnut is to show scale. This species is thought to be the longest living animal on the planet (up to around 500 years) and is studied because it has so many growth rings - like a tree. This can give information about aspects of the sea bed. Just one line of enquiry.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-thawed-the-last-ice-age/

now that really is silly, whoever said that. Be interested in seeing the evidence.

There are masses of long term plans it is just trying to convince a short term government.
There is no alternative at the moment to flood defences. Come that glorious day when they are redundant may be a tad while off.

My DH is doing his PhD in one tiny aspect of all this and although his brain is coping with the details of his one little aspect the maths is so far beyond me... About as far as A level maths is beyond a normal 4 year old. (I speak as someone who tried and failed to pass A level Pure Maths)

Well, that is what I was trying to say, and I didn't mean to cast aspersions on such as your son whitewave and his colleagues who I am sure are all extremely knowledgeable in their field and know a lot more than those making a lot of the decisions.

It is such a hugely multi-faceted problem I wouldn't think any one person or even one branch of science can cope with the complexities of how, why and what we should do about it.
Along with a good dose of common sense which some planners/builders seem to be lacking.

I need some lunch before I tackle your link JessM
Thank you!

Yes rose that is why they work so closely with other academic institutions and charities etc. Everyone seems to be continually working on and updating information and practical input.

One factor rarely talked about in the media is the recent compaction of soils in the UK- with over grazing of uplands (eg water from hills runs off very quickly downhill rather than part being absorbed) and then compaction of soils in plains below, due to extensive modern farming. Old fashioned soils with plenty of worms, etc, absorb water well- compacted soils do not. Just one factor among so many... but rarely mentionned.

That's one reason, granjura, why I wish we could get over the obsession with GM foods and look at growing more organic food. It would go back to better farming practices for the soil as well as crops and animals.

Every time someone puts in for planning permission, they have to do a flood risk assessment, no matter what size the development.
York has a 104 page document about flood management.

The people who put in flood risk assessments for the builders are paid by the developers, which is why they are subjective reports. The developer for a site of 149 houses in this village has had his plans turned down twice by the council and has now gone to appeal. From now on, it's nothing to do with the planners, just central government, who know nothing about the village. Our MP does, because she lives here. Unfortunately for the village, she will have no more say in what happens than ordinary villagers, as she is a Labour MP.

There are plans in for another 350 houses in this village, which cannot cope with the number of residents it has at the moment.

If you have watched any of the tv coverage of the flooded areas, one of the most significant points is that the vast majority of houses being flooded are not modern estates where developers have got planning consent from local councils.

The vast majority of these houses are small terrace houses built over 100 years ago before any planning laws existed. Most of the flood plain building was done during the industrialisation of the 19th century when Victorian developers threw up tens of thousand of small cheap houses on the cheapest land, which was of course on the flood plain to house the workers flooding into towns to work in the factories that were being built.

Most people have very little control over where they live, they go where they can find work and most people start life at the bottom of the housing ladder, whether buying or renting, and in most towns the cheapest properties are the little 19th century terraced cottages on the flood plain. They do not have a choice, they cannot afford to rent or buy in other areas

This is how DS started his home owning career with just such a little cottage on the flood plain because he could not afford housing anywhere else in York on his salary He sold it to his SiL after his childeren were born, when he and DDiL bought a bigger house, which happens to be above flood level. Fortunately he just missed being flooded in 2000, since then the flood defences in that area have been flooded and the house hasn't flooded this year, but in both years he, and now his SiL were close enough to being flooded to have the front and back doors sandbagged and have moved all their downstairs possessions to the upper floor.

Dealing with the flooding is not just the responsibility of the authorities , home owners need to do more to make their properties flood resistance. In York all the businesses and properties on the banks of the Ouse that flood every year have tiled floors, walls lined with water resistant plaster and the elctricity circuits are at waist level, if not higher. Some pubs even have the furniture screwed to the floor. When the flood come any soft furnishings are quickly removed. After the flood the flooded areas are hosed down with high pressure hoses and are back in use within a couple of days.

Storm Frank: What have we done to make the flooding worse? BBC Magazine

Thanks for that link Elegran I hope people will read it.

It reinforces what I posted earlier, and with illustrations and added explanations and tries to put forward the point that so much more can be out in place to minimise the impact of increased rainfall.

The Northumberland flood management scheme is one I'm familiar with and is an example of what more can be done with imagination, expert knowledge and joined up thinking.

Planning permission is still being granted for houses on flood plains - and there was TV coverage of modern houses flooded. Unless the planning authorities are working under rules rather than following guidelines, house builders will still get some of their own way. it is the same in other aspects of construction, such as building regulations.

It's called planning gain, JessM. You let me build my houses where I want and I'll give the council something in return.
It wouldn't be necessary if the councils were funded properly.

The other thing is that building firms and even supermarkets, eg Tesco, own a lot of land which we have been saying should be released for building houses which are desperately needed - how much of this land is on flood plains?
And do they need to redefine which areas are flood plains after these latest disasters?

Around us Tesco has been trying to expand their own supermarket onto the flood plain.

My local authority is under real pressure, not just from the developers but also the government. The government has insisted that 20,000 houses have to be built within the LA by 2030, but a large part of the area is Green Belt, more is in an AONB and much is on the flood plain. All attempts by the LA to oppose building in any of these three protected areas is overridden by the government when the developer takes it to appeal. There is one such appeal going on in my village at the moment.

The Environment Agency does regularly revise floodplain maps, again our village map has been redrawn and the flood plain are expanded following the massive rain event in 2007 which flooded a village that had not flooded or come anywhere near it since 1947, the flood before that was 1892.

Current government has removed targets for housebuilding hasn't it MOnica - part of the reason why the shortage is going to continue. Maybe this has not yet taken effect.
I think planning gain may be part of it - but that is a kind of mitigation for a development that is going ahead. Having lived in MK it is very familiar to me - the have to include parkland etc.
I was thinking more about the effects of big builders (and nearly all houses are built by a few big firms) lobbying the government if there is any whiff of legislation that will make their business environment more challenging. e.g. if they are asked to make houses more fuel efficient. So governments are swayed into letting things go on as they are.

JessM No, the government has not removed targets for housebuilding. It did issue a document a few months ago that abolished national housebuilding targets, instead the onus to draw up housing targets is given to local councils.

Except that about two years ago the government brought out its Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA). This document tells each authority how many houses it must build before 2030 to meet predicted housing requirements. In almost every case the SHMA figures are well above the LA estimates. The LAs are told that, of course they can appeal, but so far every appeal has been thrown out and in the mean time the LA cannot stop any development going ahead because the government has said that until the Local Plan is agreed the LAs cannot refuse any planning application.

I belong to CPRE and in my county we commissioned one of the acknowledged leading experts on housing need to examine both the LA and the SCHMA figures. They were full of miscalculations and dubious interpretations of the figures and in a carefully well-resoned paper his estimate was lower than both the LA and SCHMA figures.

In Oxfordshire the consultants that produced the original SCHMA for the government recommended far fewer houses in the county than the government wanted, so the government withdrew the Oxfordshire Study from the main document and commissioned another firm of more pliable consultants to do a study that gave the government the figures it wanted.

I am not objecting to the construction of new houses, they are needed and ours is a growth area and dormitory for two much more expensive towns, but we are getting no improvements to infrastructure. The school in our village is full and children moving into the 300 new houses already built or being built have to travel to other schools, if they can find any that have places for them. In our area of the county, because of the Green Belt, AONB and flood plain the LA has no alternative to giving consent for houses on the flood plain. There is nowhere else to build.

M0nica

I didn't mean the building of new supermarkets or expansion of existing ones on flood plains (they can do that if they have the permission, that doesn't worry me).
What I meant was that, because their expansion programmes are not going ahead, they were going to be encouraged to release the land they have acquired for building houses.
I was wondering how much of this land is on flood plains.

No, I appreciated that, it was just a comment that locally Tesco was daft enough to want to expand their store even though they knew it was on the flood plain. The existing store flooded fairly comprehensively in 2012. Presumably as planning consent has been refused, they will want to build houses on it.

Just the place M0nice

sure to get planning permission for houses

www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/02/tory-cuts-wrecking-uk-flood-defences

I wonder who leaked that document. Letwin in charge again.

we know that the maintenance to flood defences was left and the money diverted to high profile new flood defences which the government was able to showcase.

How can we have a Northern powerhouse when its biggest cities flood on a regular basis?

The Thames barrier will need reinforcing as we know that it will prove inadequate within a very few years.

sea defences are becoming more inadequate and many communities are under threat, and this isnt just small communities but value of far more than 8 to 1.

Many communities that flooded over the past few years have had either inadequate or no flood defences put into place.

The government is playing fast and loose with peoples lives and livelihoods
all on the alter of Osbornes austerity. This is the very thing that Keynes would argue needs to be addressed in order to get the economic growth we need.

Trouble with austerity is that it does destroy jobs, reduce tax take and make more people unemployed. Not just public sector - lots of "green jobs" have been lost due to Osborne changing policies on subsidies for low carbon technologies and insulation of homes.

Good to hear that the government will match £ for £ any money raised by charities up to 2m. So if they have that available why not just add it to the total- what a lot of nonsense.