Star comment: Time to adjust as heavy rain here to stay
For the second time in three months, heavy rain has brought immediate chaos to Shropshire.
Shropshire was officially the wettest county in England, with 71mm (2.8ins) of rain recorded at Pennerley in a 24 hour period.
Roads were turned into rivers, hollows became lakes, schools were closed, and householders were stranded.
Train services were cancelled and cars had to be abandoned everywhere.
The time has come when we have to stop trying to explain it all away by saying this is just what happens when it rains, and it is something that would have been shrugged off as the normal unfortunate pattern of weather by previous generations.
It is a new, relatively modern phenomenon, for heavy rain to equal flooding at any time of year. So far it has happened twice already in 2012 – in June, and now in September. These are not the floods of rising river levels, but the floods of streams turned into torrents, surface water cascading down hills, and drains which cannot cope.
Householders who have lived in their homes for decades without flood problems have, in recent years, found themselves having to cope with surges of water.
Forecasters say that we have to brace ourselves to the fact that because of changing weather and climate patterns, this is going to happen more often.
In that case, we have to adopt a different approach and outlook, in which we do not treat these problems as the result of ‘freak’weather, but as a new normality which must be prepared for and planned for.
That means housebuilders no longer being given permission to build homes in areas prone to flooding, councils putting more money and effort into keeping drainage clear, and motorists realising that modern saloon cars cannot be driven through waist-high water.
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Comments for: "Star comment: Time to adjust as heavy rain here to stay"
The Original Jake
Lawns are paved over to create additional parking space and new housing developments are built with very little by way of gardens. All that water, which used to soak away, has to go somewhere and it ends up cascading out of storm outlets into natural water courses that never had to cope with this amount of water before.
Brian
I would say the county and councils need to consider putting in large drains and drain pipes to take away flood water. The standard drain, cnnopt cope with moving flash flood water. We have flash floods here in the US where most of the time the drain system copes unless there is consistant heavy rain. The drains over here are more than twice the size of British drains. A good example was last week we had a flash flood and had considerably more rain than you have just had in Shropshire but in a shorter time frame.
Bill
Yes, paving over more and more of the landscape does reduce absorption rates - but more critically it directs rainfall in concentrated flows towards other systems and natural watercourses which are not able to cope with the immediacy of that flow.
Rain falling on a field near the Severn can take days to soak in and find its way into the river. Rain coming off a road over or alongside the river is in the river in within minutes. Only 10% of rain falling on open ground normally finds its way to a watercourse - but upwards of 55% in built-up areas.
And what is never appreciated is that well over half the drainage to which new developments are routinely allowed to be connected is pre-1950 if not Victorian - so it backs up far too readily. Nor have governments since then truly realised the necessity to install raised solid banks on many of our streams and rivers, especially where they pass through built-up areas..
It's a problem well recognised in other countries where wide concrete open storm drains that stand dry for fifty weeks a year are the solution and are funded by those who wish to develop areas likely to flood in extreme conditions.
Another solution is to dig out balancing ponds (or lakes) upstream of flood-prone areas and if possible re-route surface drainage to them. Where these are sensitively designed and positioned they provide excellent wildlife habitats and recreational facilities. Have a look at 'Balancing lake' on Wikipedia.
Jeanette Pinches
In New Zealand we have culverts at the side of the road that fill rapidly but flow rapidly as well and when it rains heavily these flow very freely and subside quickly great idea we don't have flooding everytime it rains heavily.