Bishop Hill Not so simples
Jan 3, 2016 Climate: WG2 
One of the more interesting suggestions about the reasons for the impact of the floods in the UK in recent weeks has been the suggestion that land use may be a factor. George Monbiot has been sounding off on this subject although it's difficult to take him seriously because he keeps drifting off into class-warrior mode, linking the floods to grouse moors and the like.
Today his green colleague Geoffrey Lean takes up the baton, with an article in the Independent which claims that the North Yorkshire town of Pickering avoided being flooded because of preventative measures taken by the locals:
They built 167 leaky dams of logs and branches – which let normal flows through but restrict and slow down high ones – in the becks above the town; added 187 lesser obstructions, made of bales of heather and fulfilling the same purpose, in smaller drains and gullies; and planted 29 hectares of woodland. And, after much bureaucratic tangling, they built a bund, to store up to 120,000 cubic metres of floodwater, releasing it slowly through a culvert.
The result, claims Lean was that Pickering stayed dry while everyone else flooded.
Unfortunately, a North Yorks farmer has noted in the comments that this is grossly misleading.
The North York Moors area above Pickering received far less rain than the other flooded areas mainly in the Pennines. The rainfall through Christmas day and Boxing Day was rather gentle over a 48 hour period here and even over the high ground there was probably little more than 50mm.
The main installation which held back some water is a concrete dam with small outlet - that is a substantial engineering project. The implied success of blocking streams with logs in natural channels - let alone planting (still tiny) new trees is not vindicated by this one modest rain event. Debris washing down streams has blocked bridges and channels in other areas. Logs laid in streams will rot quickly and be easily broken loose.
Planting trees may be helpful in some situations but any benefit would take decades to materialise. Peaty moorland is itself a good water store and planting trees in some situations will dry out and destroy peat. There are already thousands of acres of woodland around the edges of the North York Moors and there is little evidence run off from these areas is less than moorland or farmland nearby.
You can see why the Telegraph might have felt Lean was surplus to requirements.
Reader Comments (65)
Speed, thank you for that, very interesting. Unfortunately, the UK is a bit more crowded than the USA, and available building land for housing is scarce, and consequently expensive. We have too many houses being crammed into limited areas, and the possibility of each house having its own water retention dam is not possible.
More housing keeps being built on land known to have flooded in the past, whether on an actual river flood plain, or other areas. We have undoubtedly had a lot of rain, but it is far easier for all to shrug their shoulders and say 'Global Warming' than blame past mistakes in Planning Control systems, that allow the development of land. In the UK, this system has always been tarnished with fraud and corruption. Now the pressure to build more and more housing to meet the genuine demand, is encouraging BAD decisions by elected representatives, even if no 'money' is actually involved. These people then blame global warming, rather than admit their bad decisions, and the bad processes that led to them.
Meanwhile, we still have a housing shortage, and all political parties are at fault for the mistakes, but those parties not in power, will always blame those that are.
Capell 11:46 yes agreed, sheep would rather not get their feet wet, cows don't seem to care!
The Boscastle flood of 2004 was another unprecedented event due to global warming, except the same thing happenned to Lynmouth in 1952, before global warming had been invented.
In both cases, high rainfall in previous weeks had saturated the soil. When the downpour happened, it couldn't be absorbed, and ran straight off. 50 years apart, same cause, same result. Different blame game.
Like many greens Monbiot is an instant expert on anything that is useful to his "cause" - in fact he's more interested in knitting his rough hair shirt for us - than actually what it's made of.
That he's regularly offered a pulpit to spout says more about the entities that invite him than the content of whatever he's on about.
As to the subject of the post - knowing how much rain has fallen where and what the watercourse levels are in real time is eminently do-able. The effects of flood mitigation can be measured, run off quantified .... questions answered, designs enlightened
Few of the main players in this pitiful circus of BS seem interested in actually measuring our watercourses with a view to mitigating the effects of weather on human settlements. Bureaucratic budgets, emotional photo-ops, dimwit political point scoring and eco-religion all get more coverage....
Giving the job of integrating rainfall radar, rain gauges and measured water levels to either UKMO or The EA would be no-no for the simple fact that they've repeatedly demonstrated that neither can be trusted.
The EA have spent more on "water vole holidays" than level measurement in Somerset in recent years afaics.
9:15 PM golf charlie
Thank you for adding to my naive comment.
My understanding is that old Victorian houses had it all drain into one - the problem with a common drain and sewer is as you say. In heavy rain the treatment system becomes overwhelmed with the turds then over-flowing out into the nearest sea access and annoying surfers.
A good system for flushing the sewer but poor when it becomes overwhelmed.
Having sat on a planning committee in a different part of the country I was unaware of the new trend towards local soaks (or drainage delays).
Despite that - any system that delays the rain from rushing down the drains is to be encouraged.
This is all about physics - heat transfers - thermodynamics. Most climatologists are not qualified in physics and do not understand entropy maximization, thermodynamics or heat transfer mechanisms.
There is no valid physics which can be used to show water vapor and carbon dioxide causing the Earth's surface to be warmer. Correct, verifiable physics can be used to prove they cool. The AGW hypothesis and the "heat creep" hypothesis are mutually exclusive: only one can be right. The latter is supported by empirical evidence and experiments, as well as by the Second Law of Thermodynamics; the former is not supported by anything and easily refuted with correct physics, because the solar radiation reaching the surfaces of Earth and Venus is far too short of the mark and cannot possibly explain observed temperatures. Furthermore, there is no valid physics that claims (as the IPCC et al do) that radiation can be compounded and the sum of back radiation and solar radiation used in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations to explain the 288K estimated mean surface temperature of Earth, or the 735K mean surface temperature of Venus, which would need flux of about 20,000W/m^2. That is why I can confidently offer AU $10,000 for proving me wrong, subject to the conditions on my blog.
golf charlie wrote, "We have too many houses being crammed into limited areas, and the possibility of each house having its own water retention dam is not possible."
The point is that control of runoff is possible and often costly. The cost should be borne by those causing the runoff -- whether by on-site retention or through municipal projects. Simply letting the water run down hill so it becomes someone else's problem represents a fundamental failure of government.
Notice in the link I included that the homeowner has a choice -- keep the runoff on his land or let it run off and pay a fee. This has been controversial and contentious and has spent some time in the courts but is finally settled. The initial problem was storm runoff spilling in to the sanitary system, overloading the treatment plants and pushing untreated waste into lakes and streams -- a health hazard.
Speed, almost anything is possible if you throw enough money at it, but short of excavating a basement beneath each house and turning it into a rainwater catch pit, which then has to be pumped out, to make space for the next rainstorm, I am not sure how you think this would work in the UK.
golf charlie:
If there is no possibility of retaining water on the owner's property, the municipality must create a catchment (or a system of catchments) for the entire community to be paid for by building/land owners ... just like sewage treatment and garbage collection. Where I live, even though many have the possibility (at some inconvenience and expense) of retaining runoff on their own property they have decided to pay a fee to the sewer district.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153410204074576&set=a.40684949575.54555.601279575&type=3
Pcar,
Many thanks for sharing the Monbattery - I fully agree with Capell regarding the impact of tiny hooves on rough grassland. They do not cap the soil 'almost like concrete'. Also Monbiot does not address my original comment - the Single Farm Payment (now Basic Payment Scheme) requires maintenance of land in its original agricultural condition. You don't get more money for removing existing features.
Back to the pea under the thimble game. Monbiot deceives again...
The government's basic premise seems to be: 'Build more houses, and bugger the consequences - because if there are more floods we can blame climate change....'
Speed, er no. Can you imagine doing that in New York?
Even if this could be done, it would achieve nothing for the run off coming from land at a higher level.
Sherlock1@ 2:16 has it about right.
golf charlie asked, "Can you imagine doing that in New York?" I presume you mean Manhattan.
http://cityofmhk.com/DocumentCenter/Home/View/5642
Oops, that's Manhattan, Kansas. Here's the other one ...
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/stormwater/combined_sewer_overflow.shtml
If you're interested I'll see what I can turn up on how they're paying for it. I'll bet some comes from the Feds/EPA.
@Capell, Jan 3, 2016 at 11:46 PM
I must admit I did not fully read the article, I skimmed it and posted here to address flaxdoctor's question about CAP subsidies preventing trees, hedges, bushes etc being allowed to grow.
Having read that claim, I too find it unbelievable. The study he mentions probably stated "...absorbed by the soil up to 0.67 times more efficiently..." Moonbat in typical Gruniard fashion mangles the source and with no sub-eds at DM it is posted/printed verbatim. Lack of sub-eds is not restricted to Gruniard and tabloids, Telegraph dropped them too. When Obambi visited Britain a few years ago Telegraph reported, on page 1 (continued on page 2) the USA president's two "The Beast" cars each weighed 84 tons - that is heavier than an MBT and an absurd statement.
I can see some validity in that claim, firstly sheep will eat down to the ground whereas cows crop the growth leaving a "lawn", thus sheep grazed ground more prone to turning to mud. A churned up wet muddy surface is very slick and water flows off it in a similar way it flows off clay.
@Nic, Jan 4, 2016 at 1:31 AM
I believe the use of the sewage system for disposing of rainwater used to depend on the location. The area of the city I live in has a vast array of burns/brooks and rivers flowing to the sea. The 1980's built development I live in drains rain water into a local burn as does a friends' garage in a mid 1800's area of the city. Likewise, two previous places I've lived drained rain water into the sea and a canal. The former house was called "Fernbrook", next house down the hill was "Thornbrook" and the underground river was audible.
Childhood memory: age pre-school - I "freed" our goldfish by burying them in front garden where sound of brook was loudest so the could swim to the sea. Some time later my mother noticed the empty tank... when she exhumed them amazingly they were still alive.
Back on topic: when I lived in the outskirts of London near Heathrow (I lived near an airport and accepted the noise, my choice to live there - build more runways) rain water and sewage were combined.
Thus, it came down to a cost/benefit analysis:
What is the existing sewage system capacity?
Would increased rainwater introduced have no affect/improve flow and cleaning/overwhelm system?
If it overwhelms system is it cheaper to lay new pipes for rainwater to a suitable watercourse or upgrade sewage system?
That was the past when common sense prevailed. Now we have the Green Blob and regardless of economic sense rainwater from domestic & commercial properties must never ever enter the sewage system as common sense is against the Green religion.
@flaxdoctor, Jan 4, 2016 at 2:11 PM
INAL and know about or intend to research CAP, SFP, BPS etc. However, my analysis of Moonbat's article suggests two typical EU and/or UK perverse rules:
1. For land to remain eligible for agricultural susbsides no trees, hedges, bushes or other large shrubs may be grown even if this would improve the land's fertility, provide shelter for grazing animals or prevent soil erosion or flooding.
2. To have re-purposed land classed as agricultural it must be devoid of trees, hedges, bushes or other large shrubs.
Note: I am not defending or supporting the Moonbat (I dislike him, his views and his fellow smug, hypocrite, metropolitan elite bubble companions like Cameron, Clegg, Milliband, the Blair creature, J Corbyn, BBC etc). I read and hopefully learn from a wide range of sources and try to separate the grain of truth from the chaff and debating/conversing helps to broaden all our personal knowledge.
Speed, I did mean New York, not just Manhattan, where everything is close to the sea. The rivers in New York, rather like the Thames in London, can take any amount of rainwater, and untreated sewage if necessary. The stench of sewage in London in 1858 known as the 'Great Stink' led to a massive civil engineering project led by Joseph Bazalgette to get sewage to treatment works to the East of London. It was (?) the biggest ever public health engineering project of its time, and changed the view of London with its associated projects. I am not aware of a bigger project since.
That sewage system is largely intact and functional, although it has been augmented over the years. The embankments of the Thames were raised and widened, and form part of the modern road network. Rainwater does go into the Thames where possible, sometimes via former rivers, now culverted, flowing underneath the built environment.
If you think that a town or city the size of New York or London could accommodate rain water beneath it, and rainwater flowing in from 10s -100s miles around, without a major river or the sea, to discharge it into, go ahead and design it.
Rivers in the UK are so much smaller than in the US. Likely flooding of the Mississippi can be forecast a month (+?) in advance. We have had a wet month in the UK, so an above average low pressure with associated rain, can cause flooding almost anywhere in the UK, within less than a week, in some places, less than 24 hours. The US can not stop the Mississippi from flooding, even with weeks of advance warning. Where is the US doing it wrong?