What's the way forward?

[the winky one]

Watching the news each night and seeing the terrifying scenes of flooding and the power of the sea what do you think is the way forward now? How do you tackle it and defend against the mighty waves. Is it just a matter of dredging the rivers or building better defences, or not building on flood plains.

My heart goes out to those people each time. How do you get rid of the water when it's pumped away?

So many questions but what are the answers,and will any other country help out as we always seem eager to do for them?

Your thoughts please.

[cpwigan]

The problem you have is too many people are located in ill advised locations AND/OR actions elsewhere in the same region / area have an adverse affect upon those people's lives.

[josie andrews]

Too many people, too many houses, leading to too many retail parks, too many industrial estates. There aren't enough facilities to cater for the houses or people.

Taking farm land, green belts etc & felling trees & digging up hedgerows which hold the soil together.

The water has just got nowhere to go because of all the concrete & bricks.

The weight of all this humanity is causing Britain to sink

This island of ours will soon be completely under water eventually!!

[Owd Codger]

A lot of it is due to towns and villages in olden times being built on low land or at the base of a valley so that people were near to a river for water

Our own town of Wigan being a example with parts of the town flooded from the River Douglas when we get torrential rain.

No water storage in those days like we have today.

[medlocke]

Too many Muslims & other immigrants, Ban Islam in the UK, limit immigration to 10k a year but only let those in that have got jobs to come to and can speak english, only give benefits to foriegners who have paid into system for 5 years, throw out all immigrants who can not speak english, stop any person that leaves the country to join a Jihad in any Muslim country from entering the UK again also sanction their families benefits, stop all foriegn aid, get out of the EU, break up the labour party so the lying cheating scum can do no more damage to the country, everybody vote ukip, put a stop to the h2 train or whatever it is called, put all the foriegn aid money into building sea defences, levies and loxhs on rivers, fixing the pot holed roads, demolish all mosques and build community centres and parks on them, make Britain great again.

[jobo]

Too many Muslims & other immigrants, Ban Islam in the UK, limit immigration to 10k a year but only let those in that have got jobs to come to and can speak english, only give benefits to foriegners who have paid into system for 5 years, throw out all immigrants who can not speak english, stop any person that leaves the country to join a Jihad in any Muslim country from entering the UK again also sanction their families benefits, stop all foriegn aid, get out of the EU, break up the labour party so the lying cheating scum can do no more damage to the country, everybody vote ukip, put a stop to the h2 train or whatever it is called, put all the foriegn aid money into building sea defences, levies and loxhs on rivers, fixing the pot holed roads, demolish all mosques and build community centres and parks on them, make Britain great again.

16 minutes and still no bites.

[cpwigan]

The problem with everything is that to do something in place X affect places Y & Z further down the coast / downstream. The knee jerk reaction is I have a problem in my village, protect me without looking at the bigger picture. So you get the politicians half baked response (not bothering to consider the possibly racist / Islamophobia nonsense posted above)_.

A simple example. The Holderness Coastline runs between the Humber Estuary in the south and a headland at Flamborough head. It is the number one place in Europe for coastal erosion, and in a stormy year waves from the North sea can remove between 7 and 10m of coastline. It is one of the fastest eroding coastlines in Europe as a result of it’s geology.

The coastline starts with blowholes, stacks and stumps at Flamborough, and culminates with Spurn head, a very large spit that runs across part of Humber Estuary.

The geology runs in bands, with a chalk layer at Flamborough in the North, Boulder clay or till (laid down in the last ice age) south of that and finally river deposits in the Humber Estuary. Because the clay is an unconsolidated WEAK mass of clay particles and boulders it erodes more rapidly than the more resistant rock of chalk in the north. This has left a bay where the clay is and a headland jutting out to sea at Flamborough head.

The coastline today is around 4km inland from where it was in Roman times, and there are many LOST villages of the Holderness coastline that have long disappeared into the sea. The weak clay, stormy nature of the North Sea, and rising sea levels of 4mm per year mean that the future is bleak for parts of this coastline. In addition to the clay being vulnerable to erosion, it is also prone to slumping.

The problem is if you protect one part of the coast it has a knock on effect elsewhere. For example much of the eroded material from Humberside is eventually deposited further South along the coastline and protects those areas. Stop that process and you simply create a problem further south.

Similarly, true rivers constantly change position due to erosion and deposition. The question eventually becomes is the cost of tampering with nature too expensive to protect a village etc of 30 / 60, 600 houses / residents.

Interestingly though, the poop hits the fan in the South and the politicians scramble. The North has been dealing with such issues for centuries.

[bonnieboy]

Too many Muslims & other immigrants, Ban Islam in the UK, limit immigration to 10k a year but only let those in that have got jobs to come to and can speak english, only give benefits to foriegners who have paid into system for 5 years, throw out all immigrants who can not speak english, stop any person that leaves the country to join a Jihad in any Muslim country from entering the UK again also sanction their families benefits, stop all foriegn aid, get out of the EU, break up the labour party so the lying cheating scum can do no more damage to the country, everybody vote ukip, put a stop to the h2 train or whatever it is called, put all the foriegn aid money into building sea defences, levies and loxhs on rivers, fixing the pot holed roads, demolish all mosques and build community centres and parks on them, make Britain great again.

I agree with every thing you have said.

[the winky one]

The problem with everything is that to do something in place X affect places Y & Z further down the coast / downstream. The knee jerk reaction is I have a problem in my village, protect me without looking at the bigger picture. So you get the politicians half baked response (not bothering to consider the possibly racist / Islamophobia nonsense posted above)_.

A simple example. The Holderness Coastline runs between the Humber Estuary in the south and a headland at Flamborough head. It is the number one place in Europe for coastal erosion, and in a stormy year waves from the North sea can remove between 7 and 10m of coastline. It is one of the fastest eroding coastlines in Europe as a result of it’s geology.

The coastline starts with blowholes, stacks and stumps at Flamborough, and culminates with Spurn head, a very large spit that runs across part of Humber Estuary.

The geology runs in bands, with a chalk layer at Flamborough in the North, Boulder clay or till (laid down in the last ice age) south of that and finally river deposits in the Humber Estuary. Because the clay is an unconsolidated WEAK mass of clay particles and boulders it erodes more rapidly than the more resistant rock of chalk in the north. This has left a bay where the clay is and a headland jutting out to sea at Flamborough head.

The coastline today is around 4km inland from where it was in Roman times, and there are many LOST villages of the Holderness coastline that have long disappeared into the sea. The weak clay, stormy nature of the North Sea, and rising sea levels of 4mm per year mean that the future is bleak for parts of this coastline. In addition to the clay being vulnerable to erosion, it is also prone to slumping.

The problem is if you protect one part of the coast it has a knock on effect elsewhere. For example much of the eroded material from Humberside is eventually deposited further South along the coastline and protects those areas. Stop that process and you simply create a problem further south.

Similarly, true rivers constantly change position due to erosion and deposition. The question eventually becomes is the cost of tampering with nature too expensive to protect a village etc of 30 / 60, 600 houses / residents.

Interestingly though, the poop hits the fan in the South and the politicians scramble. The North has been dealing with such issues for centuries.

That's a brilliant answer CP...really well written..

[cpwigan]

Not all mine Winky to be fair albeit it helps teaching Geography.

Theoretically though virtually all of the East Riding of Yorkshire / Humberside is easily eroded being primarily boulder clay / till. The geology changes as you go further inland.