By Paul Homewood
There was an interesting report in last Sunday’s Telegraph about recent flooding in the Somerset Levels. I’ll not reprint the whole thing, but would certainly recommend reading it.
The essence of the article is that the flooding there, which began late last month and peaked on 1st January, are the worst in living memory.
Now, anyone familiar with this part of England will know that the Levels are notorious for winter flooding, and have been since time immemorial. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, one explanation for the county of Somerset’s name is that, in prehistory, because of winter flooding people restricted their use of the Levels to the summer, leading to a derivation from Sumorsaete, meaning land of the summer people.
And, of course, King Alfred hid away from the Vikings at Athelney, in the middle of the Levels, protected by impenetrable swamps.
Consequently, when someone says “the worst in living memory”, I tend to get the pinch of salt ready! But when a farmer, whose house is flooded for the second time in just over a year, tells us that it had not been flooded for the previous 88 years, you have to treat the matter seriously. To quote the Telegraph:
For the moment, he and his partner, Linda, are living upstairs at Horsey Farm, because the ground floor of the building has been flooded.
“The carpets have gone, the floorboards will have to come up, the plaster will have to come off the walls, we will have to start all over again,” he says. They only returned to the property nine weeks ago, having been out of it since a similar flood in November 2012.
“Before that the house had not been flooded for 88 years, that’s the point,” he says. “People lived here for centuries without it being as bad as this. Something is definitely going wrong. The water levels have gone right up.”
So, is this all evidence that climate change is making floods worse, as many would have us believe? Let’s take a look at the Met Office data. I have outlined in red the rough area we are looking at .
As can be seen, although December rainfall was higher than average, it was not abnormally so. I have also included the November map, to show that that month was around or below average for Somerset, so there is no evidence of a long term build up of water.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/anomacts
We can also look at the December rainfall trends for SW England & S Wales. The area covered by this region is shown below. Although this region covers a wider range than just Somerset, a look at the above December map indicates that much of the region was wetter than the part we are concerned with. In other words, the regional stats probably overestimate the rainfall anomaly for Somerset.
Figure 1
The graph makes clear that last month’s rainfall was not unusual in any way. Since 1910, it ranks as the 19th wettest, in other words a once every 5 year event. The rain in December does not even compare with years such as 1934, when 307mm was recorded. In fact, it is noticeable that all of the really wet Decembers occurred prior to 1970.
Taking all months of the year, rather than just December, there have been 70 months with higher rainfall than December 2013. On average, therefore, the region would expect to see rainfall amounts as high as, or higher than, last month at some stage of the year every year or two.
We can also look at the stats for the local station of Yeovilton, about 20 miles to the south of the Levels, rather than the region as a whole.
The Met Office data, which runs back to 1964, shows 121mm rainfall for December 2013. However, the Telegraph article mentions that torrential rain on New Year’s Day made the floods worse, and a check with Weather Underground shows 18mm that day, so I have added that onto the Met Office’s December figure. (It is also worth pointing out that since 1st January, rainfall amounts have been close to average for January).
The resulting 139mm would represent the 14th wettest month since 1964, so about a once in three year occurrence. Given the evidence in Figure 1, it seems likely that many more such months would have occurred prior to 1964.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/stationdata/yeoviltondata.txt
Figure 2
It is utterly clear that there has been nothing unusual about levels of rainfall, so what has been going on in Somerset? This is where the locals in Muchelney make their views plain.
There is, however, one awkward challenge that has to be made to the villagers. The Somerset Levels were built to flood. The name of the village derives from the Saxon for “great island”. If people choose to live on a historic floodplain, how can they possibly complain when it floods?
“Yes, the fields are meant to flood, but it is too much now,” says Maxine Grice, a long-time resident of Muchelney. “It comes too quickly and it stays too long. It used to happen every 10 years and it was never this deep. People have been flooded lately who never were before. It’s because the rivers haven’t been dredged over the last 20 years. They have silted up.”
Others villagers agree this is why the flood levels have risen catastrophically. They blame the Environment Agency for neglecting the local rivers, which have now silted up so much that they can only carry a third of the water they used to. The theory is that this leaves the rivers unable to cope in the rain when extra water is also sent from Taunton and Bridgwater, from where it is pumped away to protect new homes built on former floodplains.
“We are being sacrificed in order to help those towns,” says Ms Wilson-Ward. “Yes, we are a small village but we are still taxpayers, we still need to protect our houses and our businesses like everyone else. The Environment Agency need to pull their fingers out, apply for whatever money they need, start dredging, get people down here and start fixing things.”
Final Thoughts
Similar complaints have been raised many times in recent years, but this case gives us real evidence that such concerns are justified.
Whilst Somerset is only one part of the country, and the performance of the Environment Agency may be better elsewhere, it is important that, if flooding problems are to be resolved, the actual causes are identified, so they can be acted on.
It really does not help the inhabitants of Muchelney, or the thousands of others affected by floods, when David Cameron, Corinne Le Quere, Chris Smith and the rest blame them on climate change, and think that building lots of wind farms will make things better.
Perhaps some of the money spent fighting climate change should be diverted to repairing our neglected flood defences and drainage systems.
Unfortunately, it is sometimes easier hiding behind excuses than taking the responsibility to do something about a problem. And it is also very convenient when those excuses support a political agenda.
Update
Christopher Booker, who lives in Somerset, made similar comments about the failure of the Environment Agency to dredge the rivers there. He also suggests there is a desire amongst many at the Agency to see the Levels return to the swampy wilderness that existed prior to the 17thC, when they were drained
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The Environment Agency was taken over by environmental activists years ago. See http://www.insidetheenvironmentagency.co.uk/index.php?controller=post&action=view&id_post=41
Seeing how quickly Paul dug up real data on rain and flood, the twice flooded farmer surely has a bona fide case to sue, and sue.
One stick that use to educate Watermelons, the magic co2 is used not only to make money but avoid responsibility for real problems. This is a classic example.
The UK EA,, the largest (pro rata for population) such organisation in the World, and stuffed with people who are lazy and indolent, was created by Blair to promote the myth of CAGW. In the same way as the Intelligence people ‘sexed up’ the WMD story so Blair would support Bush in attacking Iraq, the CAGW scare was sexed up so Blair could do a Bush/Obama with imaginary catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
So, they have deliberately encouraged flooding and prevented farmers from doing their own remedial work, thereby to promote Agenda 21’s policies, to restore nature ‘to it’s natural self’. This means the people in Somerset and in the East are being abandoned, also the farmland.
We need to put key bureaucrats on trial for treason, also selected politicians who betrayed their nation to promote imaginary IPCC pseudo-science. The US might consider the same for its own corrupt bureaucrats and politicians.
I am slightly surprised that the Met Office only has rainfall records for Yeovilton since 1964 because it has been an active Fleet Air Arm airfield since 1941.
To all and everyone
Sumarsæte is obvious. Sumar is summer, and sete is where you sit. meaning where you sit and rule.
It really does not help the inhabitants of Muchelney, or the thousands of others affected by floods, when David Cameron, Corinne Le Quere, Chris Smith and the rest blame them on climate change, and think that building lots of wind farms will make things better.
No. It doesn’t help the long term inhabitants of Muchelney. But it does provide cover for the politicians…. and the developers that put housing developments in historical flood plains up stream and force pump the flood waters down stream onto Muchelney.. The buyers of those upstream houses bear responsibility as well.
This is yet another example of perception (of the farmer in this case) being coloured by warmist propaganda rather than being based on scientific reasoning. I live in Devon, less than 2 hours’ drive from the Somerset levels and the flooding on our property was the worst we have seen in 17 years. However, this was due to the fact that the rain came in a very short interval of time on already saturated ground. Had I not a scientific background I might have blamed ‘global warming’.
Anecdote… Following on from phillipbratby (above).
I seem to remember that when the “Department of the Environment” was dreamt up by our lovely politicians sometime around 1970, the big joke was that they occupied the biggest, ugliest most Stalinist building in London, but apart from that didn’t seem to have anything useful to do.
It’s precursors were more practical… They dealt with where people could build houses, and what sort of public buildings were erected and where.
In the great game of politics, it would seem that the DOE was created by the “traitor” Heath to demonstrate that he had “feelings for the countryside”, of course, later the DOE was merged with the Ministry of Transport and then later on Agriculture… It is now called DEFRA, again the wags have a good name for it “Deathrow”, because it has ordered the unnecessary slaughter and total ruin of a huge number of farmers.
It seems to be long forgotten that the original government department (before the DOE pre 1970) ACTUALLY DEALT WITH THE PROTECTION OF OUR ENVIRONMENT.
My apologies… I didn’t mean to suggest that farmers have been slaughtered… This was an aside about the periodic ritual slaughter of their farm stock, when there are perfectly good vaccinations available.
This seems a clear case of FRAUD under Section 4
of the UK Fraud Act 2006 – “Fraud by abuse of position”
4 Fraud by abuse of position
(1) A person is in breach of this section if he—
(a) occupies a position in which he is expected to safeguard, or not to act
against, the financial interests of another person,
(b) dishonestly abuses that position, and
(c) intends, by means of the abuse of that position—
(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or
(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.
(2) A person may be regarded as having abused his position even though his
conduct consisted of an omission rather than an act.
– So then the failure to dredge the rivers is “an omission”,
a lapse of duty, by the environment agency, or more specifically
the Environment Minister, who must be culpable as he or she is
the de facto head of the organisation, and responsible for the
rules of its operation.
Interestingly, the last Conservative Minister in this post was the
Climate Change Committee Chairman, John Gummer (1993-1997).
This is no short term failing, and the previous Labour Government
Ministers must be the real culprits here. So who were the previous
Environment Ministers, let us see.
Ministers of State responsible for the Environment: (Labour)
Michael Meacher (1997-2001)
Richard Caborn (1997-1999)
Nick Raynsford (1999-2001)
Margaret Beckett (2001-2006)
David Miliband (2006-2007)
Hilary Benn (2007-2010)
These people were so convinced that “climate” was alone responsible
for these catastrophes, that they omitted to carry out their duties in a
proper fashion, and as a result they caused a loss, or exposed others
to the risk of a loss, and so therefore they are in jeopardy of breaches
of Section 4, of the UK Fraud Act 2006, The fact that some offences
occurred prior to the Act receiving “Royal Assent”, does not change
the fact, and they miscreants would still be culpable under the previous
fraud legislation, notwithstanding the offences of misfeasance and that
of nonfeasance, being “misconduct in public office”.
Will any person in the “Somerset Levels” make a complaint in these terms
to the Somerset Police. That would be a first step in getting the matters
resolved, since I am sure that the current Minister, Owen Patterson MP,
would not wish to join his Labour Party predecessors in the Dock.
… D.F.
Of course it doesn’t help that upland bog has been drained (to make way for wind generating stations) thus causing faster run off from the hills, which cannot be coped with downstream. Also planning permission has been given for building on flood plains/meadows, wetlands as people from town/cities move to the country who cannot understand why locals have never built in certain areas.
The hints are in the names: Flood Lane, Watermead/meadow lane, places including Fen in their name etc
I lived on the Somerset level (at Mark) for about 18 months (1965/66) and had my VW beetle subjected to slight floating across dips in a single track road (the Kingsway) and very alarmingly, water in the fuel tank. I have suspected a fuel stop on the A38 nearby one rainy afternoon for the latter. I have also lived in Lincolnshire which is a place of dykes and much pumping – don’t seem to hear much from there about flooding though.
I have also lived near Tewksbury Abbey (Gloustershire) which is always distinct by the Abbey above flood level. Build houses in these places and you are simply asking for it at some point.
All very flat areas and drain into the sea(s)…if they can? Look on Google Maps to see these areas.
I lived close to the levels for some time and there are many many places that have a network of very large ditches that drain the land to minimise flooding. It is not unusual to see fields full of water in the winter months around that area.
Look on Google earth at around the outskirts of Glastonbury and you will see them. Here is a Google Map Reference
51°10’7.78″N
2°41’50.84″W
Zoom in/out until you can see road names and look for the term ‘Drove’ you will see Long Drove, Crabtree Drove, there are loads of them. Zoom in on these and you will see the ditches, they run parallel (usually on both sides of the road) and criss-cross the fields.
You can find these scattered around all over the levels.
After working in floodplain management in western Washington state for over 20 years, I can tell you that this Somerset flooding is absolutely typical: Upland development increases run-off, while environmental agencies do everything they can to impede the maintenance of lowland drainage systems, aiming to return the floodplain to “natural” wetland conditions.
One thing is certain: Climate change has little or nothing to do with it.
The ea have annual maxima data for flood flows available for download on their website, rainfall does directly relate to a flood flow, there are many other factors involved. I would assume the drain is gauged somewhere and the river parrot would be. Clearing of the ageing drains cut by the catholic church to drain the swampland is an on going issue, as well as groundwater issues, land movement (the sw is sinking slowly due to glacial rebound i am told) no doubt there is also longterm settlement due to the old organic peat layers as often occurs in such land. No doubt though the levels have always been very wet andflood prone with the original residents living on islands in the reed marshes.
It’s worth pointing out that in the same section of the Sunday Telegraph, there was an article by their Environmental correspondent Charles Clover that promoted the exact opposite solution – namely, that floodwater SHOULD drain to low-lying fields and ditches, and that dredging simply dislodged greater amounts of water to channels that could not cope. But of course, when the powers-that-be have permitted large-scale house-building on flood plains ………
The MoS has an article accusing certain EU policies as responsible for some of this flooding because of tree clearances. Read & ponder.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2541773/Drowned-EU-millions-Thought-extreme-weather-blame-floods-Wrong-The-real-culprit-European-subsidies-pay-UK-farmers-destroy-trees-soak-storm.html
@ur momisugly Susan Young January 18, 2014 at 11:59 pm:
I too live in Devon, less than an hour from the Somerset levels. Although the ground is saturated, the rainfall here where I live has been fairly normal for winter. The river at the bottom of my garden has hardly risen at all this winter. Twice in the last 5 years the river level has been far far higher.
blah blah: “It is now called DEFRA, again the wags have a good name for it “Deathrow””
Where I lived when it was created, DEFRA was known as the Department for the Elimination of Farming and Rural Activities.
I don’t understand why Paul thinks it needs a month of rain to cause floods.
The fact is nearly all of the area’s December rain came in the last half, and in several intense downpours. Indeed, the thirty day period 15/12-15/1 is one of the wettest ‘months’ I’ve ever experienced in Devon. Such quantities of rain, over a short period, are going to cause floods.
Would dredging the river help? Given the quantity of rain, and looking at the vast quantities of water on the levels, I suspect the cost to the public purse of doing work that would be effective would be prohibitive.
We Live in a watermill just above Taunton right on top of the River Tone. There has been considerable new house building along the river above us, and the EA have signed off a varied assortment of flood alleviation “solutions” which, surprisingly, no one ever seems to monitor.
The are, obviously, many reasons for flooding, this year, it has been constant rain, not as much in quantity as last winter, but more often, and as it has fallen on saturated ground, it has no where to go.
We took 2 years getting permission to dredge our Leat, (there are 6 houses along it) and finally were allowed to do so. The Ea still say it made no difference as the water would still be the same amount and would kill the wildlife. Last winter, the cottages didn’t flood, they would have if the leat had not been dredged.
The wildlife came back the day we refilled the leat, Kingfishers, water voles, trout, etc. we have mentioned this to them (more than once!)
The attenuation systems used seem to be designed to keep back one rainfall event. (and then only with some systems if it is a 1 in 100 event) whereas if you have almost continuous rain, day after day, with only short respites, then these systems cannot cope and the water goes down and floods the levels.
The houses that are now being flooded there are not new houses, but ones that were built when people could take the time and trouble to read the rivers, and build as safely as possible.
Blaim? Central Government’s blinkered views on new housing regardless, EA inability to understand anything not “modelled” on a computer, and the developers who have excellent people who have the expertise honed over many years of battling Parish and Local Councils. Also, as mentioned, the passing of the buck to climate change.
@Philip Bratby.
Astonishing reports.
My river, the Teign, has twice burst it’s banks in a month. It is a river that hardly ever floods. SE Devon has been utterly saturated for a month.
Here in East Anglia near Cambridge they are going to build a whole new town at a place called “Water Meadow”. More fun ahead that is.
There are many many reasons for increased risk of flooding, some points already mentioned but here’s a couple of basic ones:
1) Hardcover development upstream (or up-valley) of the floodplain. This causes more surface runoff to be directed to drainage (and thence streams/rivers) than prior to development. A big supermarket (and its car park area) can produce many cubic metres of ‘surface’ water in a very short time (minutes!) during a storm. Think of such a recent development near you – was it a field or small property beforehand? – that rain would previously have taken likely days to reach the natural watercourses – now, it will be almost instant. Modern planning rules are intended to reduce this, e.g. by insisting on SUDS, sustainable drainage systems, with holding ponds, attentuated discharge rates, etc, – but of course, it is not applied retrospectively!
2) Clearing of river channels in one area merely moves the problem downstream somewhere. Similarly, building up flood banks in an upstream area simply means that more water is channeled downstream, instead of spreading across the upstream natural floodplain. In other words, somehat bluntly put – if you speed the water through upstream somewhere – it will bugger up somewhere else downstream!
3) Generally, it appears that the EA does not consider the big picture anymore. Perhaps this is due to political type pressure placed on their masters by irate property owners who have been flooded. The kind of ”Fix my area” types – and bugger the poor sods elsewhere? In the UK, with less and less development land available, and more and more infrastructure (roads, buildings, etc) hardcover, it seems only reasonable to expect that water regimes and flooding risks will continually change/move.
4) No matter what the EA does, there will always be unusual storms, rainfall events as per history! It is simply not feasible to ‘cover’ all eventualities and flooding will continue to occur.
Jo Beaumont says:
January 19, 2014 at 1:35 am
well said. Most Older houses rarely flooded before – it is the water regime around them that has more likely changed. I agree, the EA are indeed very blinkered and in the ‘Computer says No’ mindset most of the time.