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This is a dedicated thread for discussing article: Floody Madness!
So the fact that most river in England have not been dredged for 30+ years has nothing to do with flooding so every river in England is still able to carry the same capacity of water as they were when they were dredged and in the 30 years we have built so much more on flood pains and increased the size of our cities and towns and the run of is vastly more than it was, and the rivers still have the same capacity as before..yeah right! :wh
Head waters play a big part of flood defence true.. but if you have 2 foot of mud/silt in a river bed, that's 2 foot of water that has to go some where else.
You think 1700 reduction in EA staff is going to make a difference in flood defence ( and fisheries ) then take a look at this site and see where the money really go's and is wasted and the fraud committedmg:
http://http://www.insidetheenvironmentagency.co.uk/
Pay particular attention to the diagram showing land area and staff numbers and budget of the UK EA compared to the USA and our European cousins EA's
When your being scammed/conned always follow the money, in this case about £1.2billion of OUR money. The EA is dinosaur and needs a root and branch clear out of corrupt and lazy idle paper shufflers and wasters..alot like Parliament
Could it be better to build strategically placed reservoirs along our rivers that flood regularly. Keep them empty and then fill them up by draining or pumping excess water off the rivers during flooding. Then empty them again slowly back into the rivers during drought spells in the summer keeping the levels up. Solves both problems of flooding and droughts?
Correct Martin but nor can we develop our way out of over population either, as suggested by the Govt/party you once were a member of.
For every action there's a reaction and in the case of an overpopulated isle you get over development that manifests itself in flooding, water stress, outstripping of natural resources and services.
"Could it be better to build strategically placed reservoirs along our rivers that flood regularly. Keep them empty and then fill them up by draining or pumping excess water off the rivers during flooding. Then empty them again slowly back into the rivers during drought spells in the summer keeping the levels up. Solves both problems of flooding and droughts?"
CHUB ON THE BLOCK:-
In principle this seems a great idea. It is already the case that many water abstractors (eg farm irrigation reservoirs) can only take water during the winter or when flows are high - especially in lowland catchments prone to droughts. Politically though, major landowners or local communities do not like large-scale reservoir proposals. Noise and inconvenience during construction, loss of local landscape character etc. For almost 30 years now, there has been a plan for a reservoir in SW Oxfordshire that still hasnt received agreement to be built. Proposals can fail if they rely just on spate/flood flows to fill them - because there could be 5-10 year periods or longer where such events do not occur and they would be unused white elephants. At other times - and attempts will always been made to secure their use during normal conditions also - their development becomes an abstraction issue - with knock-on impacts upon the donor river downstream
ME:-
There would be problems getting permission and public agreement where to build them for sure. But, if it could be proved that it would solve the problem of both floods and drought , would the public be that against it. Could they be underground reservoirs? I have seen this done in a town where two underground reservoirs were built to take away and store flood water that kept flooding the draining system and the water fed back into the water grid, and it worked. Could the reservoirs be lined with solar panels so, when empty they were providing cheap electricity if not underground? I don't know, just something that comes to mind however, I just see it as a long term way of solving the problems. Would be expensive to build but, they would last for a very long time if not forever with a little maintenance. If it was a permanent solution, worth the expense I think..
Areas that receive floodwaters and then release the water gradually helping to protect areas downstream also exist in nature - as marshes, bogs, fens. Unfortunately farmers have been subsidised and encouraged for generations to drain and plough them up.
Another natural storage area is aquifers - down here in the south we cant get enough potable water from them to meet our needs without trashing the chalk streams or rivers that depend on them. Perhaps if rainwater wasnt channelled off to sea as fast as possible these aquifers could re-fill more effectively too - if water was allowed to stand on the floodplains a bit longer. In truth, many rivers have become disconnected from their floodplains except during extreme flooding events as we have seen lately.
Love it Maceo!
Here's one just for Davieboy and anyone else deluded enough to think the Ukip crazies are the answer to anything
Married gays to tour drought-hit countries
No politics please.Who said Ukip had the answer's clearly you politicians don't/didn't. the EA don't have the answer in its current form, your alliance and kneeling at the Green alter certainly doesn't have the answer.
The only real answer is to pass law that stops ALL developing of flood plains.
but seeing as All politcal parties are in the pocket of big business/corporate for their party funding thats not going to happen,is it Martin.
Oh and disband the EA and put in place a national organisation that is accountable to the people who pay for it, not the quango thats staffed and managed by self serving politcal appointed lifers who little to justify the huge money its given to do a job its ill equipped and able to do.
Your sad little attempt at labelling me a UKIPer shows why you were ill equipped at politics Martin, you've gone from Red to watermelon very quickly but then all lot of th comrades are really all watermelons dressed as reds like Lucas eh!:wh