Floods and droughts?
Discussion
Watching and reading the various articles on the flooding that has occurred across the UK, and the references to climate change, where droughts are allegedly predicted for the UK in summer, the thought struck me that perhaps a suitable response to this, would be for the UK to build massive new reservoirs, into which flood waters could be diverted/pumped.
This could then help to reduce / stop flooding in the areas that always seem to get hit by flooding, whilst at the same time providing a huge source of water to help deal with the drought conditions some are predicting will now start affecting the UK in the summers to come.
It may seem simplistic, but to me, storing water when the UK has too much of it, for use when it does not have enough seems a common sense approach to both problems.
Of course none of this would be cheap, but comparing a one off payment of billions to build the reservoirs, and the infrastructure required to handle the water, to the millions / billions? needed to pay for the damage that both flooding and drought cause every time they happen still seems like a good deal in the long term. Or is the idea of storing water when we have too much, for use when we don't have enough too silly?
This could then help to reduce / stop flooding in the areas that always seem to get hit by flooding, whilst at the same time providing a huge source of water to help deal with the drought conditions some are predicting will now start affecting the UK in the summers to come.
It may seem simplistic, but to me, storing water when the UK has too much of it, for use when it does not have enough seems a common sense approach to both problems.
Of course none of this would be cheap, but comparing a one off payment of billions to build the reservoirs, and the infrastructure required to handle the water, to the millions / billions? needed to pay for the damage that both flooding and drought cause every time they happen still seems like a good deal in the long term. Or is the idea of storing water when we have too much, for use when we don't have enough too silly?
The idea seems to be that blaming climate change is far cheaper than maintaining or investing in infrastructure. Plus it permits new taxes and bans on fuels that might be cheaper to use.
Sensible option would be better maintenance of rivers to lower the risk of flooding, and better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
Sensible option would be better maintenance of rivers to lower the risk of flooding, and better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
robbieduncan said:
If we are going to create huge reservoirs to store spare water might as well make the suitable for pumped hydro to store energy at the same time too
Indeed I was reminded of the scheme in Wales? I believe where water is pumped up to a newly built reservoir in the mountains, using off peak electricity for the pumps, which was then released to power a hydro elec plant during the times of high demand during the day. So yes, hydro electricity could also be a side benefit of reducing or stopping flooding in the winter, and supplying water in times of drought.A posted earlier it cannot be cheap, but compared to repeatedly having to pay out millions or billions to mitigate the effects of repeated flooding, or drought conditions, would suggest that in the long term it would be money well spent.
Sophisticated Sarah said:
The idea seems to be that blaming climate change is far cheaper than maintaining or investing in infrastructure. Plus it permits new taxes and bans on fuels that might be cheaper to use.
Sensible option would be better maintenance of rivers to lower the risk of flooding, and better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
Cannot disagree with this, but reducing the chance of flooding in the winter, with better maintenance of rivers, and water courses is not going to solve the issue of the predicted droughts in the summer. Sensible option would be better maintenance of rivers to lower the risk of flooding, and better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
We don't want to just get rid of the water into the sea, we also want to hold onto it for when the predicted drought conditions occur, Apart from extracting some hydro power from the movement of billions of tons of water, the reservoirs themselves could form part of a national park, recreation chain, which would provide further benefits from storing huge volumes of fresh water.
Local flooding here is caused by the unmaintained drains and gutters filling up with mud and leaves and then simply not working to actually drain water when we do get rain.
Its maintenance that is required.
Water shortages in summer are from too much demand and not enough maintenance on leaky pipes. Infrastructure investment is needed to enlarge or build reservoirs but again the money is not spent.
Its maintenance that is required.
Water shortages in summer are from too much demand and not enough maintenance on leaky pipes. Infrastructure investment is needed to enlarge or build reservoirs but again the money is not spent.
How much water was seen recently that could have been absorbed by well managed lands and no front gardens turned to tarmac, astro turf and all that? Have these recent events just been too much for any system to cope with? 7 meters above normal at Monmouth, that is a lot of water coming down the Wye, was this overwhelming no matter what we did?
Regarding new reservoirs, where do you put them?
Regarding new reservoirs, where do you put them?
Getragdogleg said:
Local flooding here is caused by the unmaintained drains and gutters filling up with mud and leaves and then simply not working to actually drain water when we do get rain.
Its maintenance that is required.
Water shortages in summer are from too much demand and not enough maintenance on leaky pipes. Infrastructure investment is needed to enlarge or build reservoirs but again the money is not spent.
All true, but I was just commenting on the fact that in winter we seem to have too much fresh water, and (if climate predictions are to be believed) in summer we wont have enough, it just seemed like common sense, to take action that would help to solve both conditions in one go.Its maintenance that is required.
Water shortages in summer are from too much demand and not enough maintenance on leaky pipes. Infrastructure investment is needed to enlarge or build reservoirs but again the money is not spent.
Pan Pan Pan said:
Sophisticated Sarah said:
The idea seems to be that blaming climate change is far cheaper than maintaining or investing in infrastructure. Plus it permits new taxes and bans on fuels that might be cheaper to use.
Sensible option would be better maintenance of rivers to lower the risk of flooding, and better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
Cannot disagree with this, but reducing the chance of flooding in the winter, with better maintenance of rivers, and water courses is not going to solve the issue of the predicted droughts in the summer. Sensible option would be better maintenance of rivers to lower the risk of flooding, and better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
We don't want to just get rid of the water into the sea, we also want to hold onto it for when the predicted drought conditions occur, Apart from extracting some hydro power from the movement of billions of tons of water, the reservoirs themselves could form part of a national park, recreation chain, which would provide further benefits from storing huge volumes of fresh water.
All seems very sensible...so unlikely to happen. (The blaming climate change being cheaper line made me smile...rings so true).
TPSA7514 said:
Isn't part f the problem building houses on land that was used for flood plains
Mostly.We used to rent a little farm cottage, and every year the river would flood, and the water would cover the fields adjacent and come up to the gate of the cottage and stop. Which is why they built the cottage where they did. About a year after we moved out, the farmer sold the fields for a new housing estate.....
Building new resevoirs is difficult. Only certain sites are suitable (from a geology and geometric perspective), and the UK is a crowded place. so even with lots of money to build them, the process will be time consuming and difficult. People also hate change, so any new thing gets opposition. As a child i lived in Oxfordshire, and can remember the "STOP THE POWERSTATION" demonstrations when they were building Didcot power station. When it was announced that they were going to knock the powerstation down a few years ago, the locals formed a "SAVE OUR POWERSTATION" group......
Agammemnon said:
Sophisticated Sarah said:
better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
I think that if idiots didn't buy them then developers would soon stop building them..Agammemnon said:
Sophisticated Sarah said:
better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
I think that if idiots didn't buy them then developers would soon stop building them..https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20510497
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wal...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-42150088
Apparently the developer was told to mitigate flooding or there was some agreement in place, they knew it was a flood plain and culverts and drains did appear to be an issue. Developer now walked away?
The management of flooding rivers is something the French do quite well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Der-Chantecoq
However it still hasnt stopped all of the flooding that Paris has seen in the past years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Der-Chantecoq
However it still hasnt stopped all of the flooding that Paris has seen in the past years.
Murph7355 said:
Agammemnon said:
Sophisticated Sarah said:
better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
I think that if idiots didn't buy them then developers would soon stop building them..
There's nothing wrong with building a National Water Grid, except for the logistics and cost when HS2 isn't yet completed.
UK floods are not linked to human-induced climate change. Apart from analysis demonstrating this from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (2007 SW UK event) and a team from Aberystwyth, Cambridge and Glasgow (2015 NW UK event) a research paper by J Barredo looked at a recent climatically relevant period, 37 years, and found no detectable sign of human-induced global climate change in flood events across 31 countries in Europe including the UK.
When somebody talks about a 1 in 100 year event occurring 3 or 4 times in a shorter period, this doesn't prove that any pattern change has occurred. A 1 in 100 year event can happen as a cluster of 3 events within 100 years and then not at all over the next 200. Anybody making any claims before several hundred years have passed is suffering from premature adjudication, usually for political or vested interest reasons.
When somebody talks about unprecedented flooding, meaning since records began (not long ago) or in the case of the Met Office, the last 200 years, it's simply not a long enough timescale to assess natural variation at any location. Check out the 1500s and 1930s.
This is also the case for droughts, as per 'drought stones' revealed by...droughts. These are engraved stones which show droughts across the centuries as severe as anything in the modern era. This is from the Elbe with markings from 1417 to 1893, as revealed by a recent drought.
Globally deaths from droughts are decreasing not increasing. We would expect an increase from global manmade climate change from increasing carbon dioxide levels. The 1930s Warm Period was far worse than today for drought-related deaths. The 1980s were also worse but less worse than the 30s in terms of total drought The proportion of the globe in drought is unchanged over the past 50+ years.
Meanwhile the chances of a UK National Water Grid remain remote, and sums of public money will continue to be spent in the hundreds of £billions in ways that don't and won't help protect anyone's life / home / business.
UK floods are not linked to human-induced climate change. Apart from analysis demonstrating this from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (2007 SW UK event) and a team from Aberystwyth, Cambridge and Glasgow (2015 NW UK event) a research paper by J Barredo looked at a recent climatically relevant period, 37 years, and found no detectable sign of human-induced global climate change in flood events across 31 countries in Europe including the UK.
When somebody talks about a 1 in 100 year event occurring 3 or 4 times in a shorter period, this doesn't prove that any pattern change has occurred. A 1 in 100 year event can happen as a cluster of 3 events within 100 years and then not at all over the next 200. Anybody making any claims before several hundred years have passed is suffering from premature adjudication, usually for political or vested interest reasons.
When somebody talks about unprecedented flooding, meaning since records began (not long ago) or in the case of the Met Office, the last 200 years, it's simply not a long enough timescale to assess natural variation at any location. Check out the 1500s and 1930s.
This is also the case for droughts, as per 'drought stones' revealed by...droughts. These are engraved stones which show droughts across the centuries as severe as anything in the modern era. This is from the Elbe with markings from 1417 to 1893, as revealed by a recent drought.
Globally deaths from droughts are decreasing not increasing. We would expect an increase from global manmade climate change from increasing carbon dioxide levels. The 1930s Warm Period was far worse than today for drought-related deaths. The 1980s were also worse but less worse than the 30s in terms of total drought The proportion of the globe in drought is unchanged over the past 50+ years.
Meanwhile the chances of a UK National Water Grid remain remote, and sums of public money will continue to be spent in the hundreds of £billions in ways that don't and won't help protect anyone's life / home / business.
Sophisticated Sarah said:
The idea seems to be that blaming climate change is far cheaper than maintaining or investing in infrastructure. Plus it permits new taxes and bans on fuels that might be cheaper to use.
Sensible option would be better maintenance of rivers to lower the risk of flooding, and better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
Ding! 10 points.Sensible option would be better maintenance of rivers to lower the risk of flooding, and better planning of new housing estates so they’re not built on plots of land with cute names such as watery meadows.
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