Flooding?

[Simon Wilson]

The Environment Agency employ some clever statisticians who have a lot of data to work with. When the EA's deputy chief executive speaks on the BBC and says that in reference to climate change, "We are in a period of known extremes and are moving into a period of unknown extremes." I think he will have considered it carefully and is saying something of significance.

There is going to be a major review of flood defenses and the effects of climate change will be included in it.

In the interview he also talked about flood resilience in building design.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06sg1tx

 

[Simon Wilson]

.... but as in York, in 2007 the water level was just too much, the gates were raised and the flood plain flooded, as it's meant to. I've often wondered why that settlement exists where it does, as again, it's not all new, but it's obviously a flood plain.

It exists where it does because it was a very important port and a defensive site between two rivers. It has always had problems with flooding. Most of the city isn't on flood plain and the areas close to the rivers which flood are only a very small proportion of the city.

 

[pwhole]

Ah, I actually meant the settlement of Catcliffe, between Sheffield and Rotherham, but point taken all the same

 

[RobinGriffiths]

Written by a yoghurt weaving, yurt living, blah di blah leftie, but interesting non the less.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/29/deluge-farmers-flood-grouse-moor-drain-land

Mind, I remember concerns over grippingin the Dales back in the 80s.

 

[Simon Wilson]

Written by a yoghurt weaving, yurt living, blah di blah leftie, but interesting non the less.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/29/deluge-farmers-flood-grouse-moor-drain-land

Mind, I remember concerns over grippingin the Dales back in the 80s.

Yes, interesting. The grouse moors that have been combined into what is now called the Walshaw Estate were gripped in the 1980s and the geomorphic effects were immediate and dramatic.

One ancient bridge was completely washed away in 1989.
http://blog.wildyorkshire.co.uk/tag/bronte-bridge/

Another one was washed away in 1990 but was repairable.
http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=1157

In Walshaw Dene on the Hebden side a house sized boulder was moved in 1990.

In 2006 there was a huge moor fire in which a vast area of peat was burned down to clay and bedrock. The fire burned for weeks and went out when there was no more peat to burn. The gamekeepers were heather burning on the day that the peat caught fire.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/5236072.stm

 

[underwhere]

Not my pic, but it says something.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXOHg9vWkAA5GVT.jpg

 

[Alex]

I think Paul got in there before you there.

 

[Simon Wilson]

Like many of these very special habitats this is a SSSI. NE not are going anywhere near far enough; there should be a blanket ban on heather burning. To say that heather burning is good for wildlife and to pretend that the moors can be intensively managed in the way that these are without vastly reducing biodiversity is ridiculous. Yes these moors do provide habitat for golden plover but I have also seen hen harriers and goshawks sporadically which always soon 'disappear'.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/countryside/9061388/Legal-battle-threatens-Englands-grouse-moors.html

 

[JasonC]

They also warn of economic hardship: grouse shooting generates an estimated annual ?67.7 million,...

(from the Telegraph article above)

Maybe, but nowadays a lot of grouse moors are owned by obscure tax-avoiding offshore companies on behalf of foreign billionaires.  I doubt much of that goes back in to the local economy.

 

[Alex]

67.7 mil?, that's peanuts. How much has the recent flooding cost? far FAR more than that.