The Somerset Levels Flooding, 2014
From the OCR A course.
One of the case studies, in the UK Environmental Challenges section.
- Created by: heidi.harvey
- Created on: 16-04-19 21:24
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- The Somerset Levels
- Where?
- Vast flat agricultural area
- South west England
- Lying between the Quantock, and Mendip Hills
- Jan 2014 - 4225km became inundated with flood water.
- The flood lasted several weeks, causing immense disruption to peoples lives and considerable environmental damage
- Villages were cut off and many people & farm animals had to be rescued
- Causes?
- Human
- River Parrett = not been dredged for some 20 yrs, and its channel had been silted, reducing its capacity to cope with flood water
- Drainage ditches used to drain the land for farming increased the speed of water flow into rivers
- Building on the floodplains (road and houses) increased run-off into rivers
- Physical
- Wettest winter period since 1910 - 12 major storms between Dec 2013 and Feb 2014, driven accross the Atlantic Ocean by the powerful jet stream
- Jet stream = narrow band of very strong wind currents the circle the globe several km above the Earth
- Strong tidal surges swept sea water into the river systems & prevented water from the land escaping to the sea - led to the flooding of the River Tone and Parrett
- Tidal surges deposited huge amounts of silt in the river channels, reducing their capacity to hold water
- The land is extremely flat/ low-lying, making it particularly vulnerable to flooding
- Wettest winter period since 1910 - 12 major storms between Dec 2013 and Feb 2014, driven accross the Atlantic Ocean by the powerful jet stream
- Human
- Effects?
- Social
- 600 homes were damaged
- Some villages were cut off for weeks (eg. Muchelney)
- Several roads were impassable, increasing journey times, and leading to considerable inconvenience
- Economic
- cost = £82m - £147m
- Farm animals had to be moved, fed expensive grain and sold
- Businesses in the area lost money due to extra transport cost and lack of visitors.
- Environmental
- 7000 hectares of productive agricultural was underwater for several week
- Natural Enland reported that the floods seemed to have little impact on the wildlife.
- Social
- Consequences
- Short term
- Environmental Agency installed 62 pumps, working 24/7, to remove 1.5 million tonnes of water
- Royal Marines deployed to help the residents that were cut off by the flood
- Police increased their patrols
- Long term
- March 2014 - govt wrote a 24 yr flood action plan for Somerset
- dredging more of the river parrett and tone
- repairing damaged flood banks
- Raising the road into Muchelney
- Making the pumps permenant
- Building a flood barrier, similar to the Thames Barrier, to hold back tidal surges
- All the solutions = hard engineering, expensive, man-made approaches
- March 2014 - govt wrote a 24 yr flood action plan for Somerset
- Short term
- Where?
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