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The Flooding

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Post  cyfrifia Fri Feb 21, 2014 9:44 am

Figures for 1 December to 19 February show that the UK has had 486.8mm (19.2 in) of rain.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/20/uk-suffers-wettest-winter-rainfall-record-floods

What does that mean though, is it possible to calculate how many million tons of rain fell on the UK during that time?

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Post  Atlas Sat Feb 22, 2014 1:08 am

Most certainly. It is only a mathmatical equation. Take the land area in sq yardage. Take the weight of H2O at a depth of 1" per sq yrd and multiply by the total square yardage them multiply again by 19.2 and convert to tonnage Imperial or USA. Dead simples. Er - Wink 
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Post  Dalelad Sat Feb 22, 2014 12:23 pm

1lt = 1kg
so a container 10cm x 10cm x 10cm = 1kg, i.e a footprint of  0.0001km x 0.00001km = 0.00000001 km2
Area of GB is 229848 km2 which means you could fit 22,984,800,000 of those size containers in it.
At 10cm high that's 22,984,800,000 tonnes.
19.2 inches = 48.77 cm so the total weight would be around 22,984,800,000 x 48.77 / 10 = 112,092,272,640 tonnes of rain

Alternatively google says one inch of rain per acre is 113.3 tons
Ahere are 56796800 acres in the GB so that equals a weight of 6,435,077,440 tons per inch or 123,553,486,848 tons for 19.2 inches

Either way, it's a lot of water.
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Post  cyfrifia Sat Feb 22, 2014 4:46 pm

Well done Dalelad. It is. According to my calculations, equivalent to a cube of water nearly two miles high.

With metric tonnes, american tons, short tons, liters and gallons, inches of rain, USA billions and British billions, acres and hectares, a population not very interested in maths, the misleading way statistics are usually presented, most of the measurements and statistics we are given don't add up to much. If it's very hot, temperatures are given in fahrenheit, if it's very cold, in centigrade, the weather forecast tells us there will be spits and spots and the bedroom tax is miscalculated.

Politicians who talk in statistics rely on boring their audience into submission. Is that the deficit or the national debt? How many trillions? Is that the figure for England or the UK? A new branch of statistical mathematics is needed, statistics that are clear, reliable and understandable. A good hobby for a retired accountant perhaps.

While the soul slumbers, all is numbers.

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Post  Atlas Sun Feb 23, 2014 1:21 am

Well done everybody. So how many buckets would I need to catch it all and put a stop to the flooding? Rolling Eyes Wink 
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Post  cyfrifia Sun Feb 23, 2014 10:35 am

That would be a specialist calculation. Shadow Floods Minister Barry Gardiner, who is very much featured in the news at the moment, will be able to answer that question when he returns from Mexico.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2565672/Hard-work-Mexico-Ed-Milibands-flood-supremo-basks-85C-sun-kissed-jolly-Britons-count-cost-deluge.html

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Post  Atlas Mon Feb 24, 2014 1:13 am



I don't really think it has that much to do with him has it? He's not the present mug in the firing line as he doesn't have the wherewith all to do anything constructive about it - other than moan and say it wasn't anything to do with his/ the previous party's administration.

He has the 'get out of do-do' card whilst in opposition. As for 'junketing' - what's new!
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Post  cyfrifia Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:29 am

Perhaps the junketing and dodgy financial arrangements alluded to by the press are not acceptable to the general public after the M.P.s expenses scandal.

What look very much like total dereliction of duty by Labour's 'flood' minister, during a time of national crisis, sipping vodka cocktail by the poolside in an expensive tropical resort under the pretence of attending yet another all expenses paid 'conference' may not go down well with those devastated by and struggling with the flooding.

Or, you could look at it the other way and say, yes, Shadow Floods Minister Barry Gardiner is, completely irrelevant.

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Post  Atlas Tue Feb 25, 2014 12:59 am

cyfrifia wrote:
Or, you could look at it the other way and say, yes, Shadow Floods Minister Barry Gardiner is, completely irrelevant.



I thought I just did. Crying or Very sad

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Post  cyfrifia Tue Feb 25, 2014 9:10 am

Labour floods spokesman Barry Gardiner M.P. and his wife have now returned from their holiday in Mexico. After being called in to see the Chief Whip he has apologised for ‘any hurt’ his actions caused to victims of the recent floods.

However, as he has proved himself irrelevant, this will be of little or no interest to anyone, except perhaps those considering a general roundup and disposal of irrelevant M.P.s.

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Post  Dalelad Tue Feb 25, 2014 12:07 pm



So no one in Parliament can have a holiday whenever something has affected over a certain number of people in the country?
Or they can but not if it's above a certain level of luxury?
What nonsense. I would hazard a guess people are looking to be offended again.
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Post  cyfrifia Tue Feb 25, 2014 7:03 pm

In response to proposals to minimise future flooding, Roger Falconer, professor of water management and director of the hydro-environmental research centre at Cardiff University, said one solution that would not work was planting more trees, Falconer said. "Where is the evidence that trees are going to abate flood risk issues? There is a lot of evidence that trees will raise the groundwater levels. To go and plant 10 million trees at the top of the catchment seems lunacy, we should leave nature as it is."

Everyone is entitled to an opinion and Professor Falconer is a well qualified hydraulic engineer, but, it is a bit late to "leave nature as it is". Perhaps he is brilliant with engineering but does not have much grasp of how nature and landscape work?

Perhaps he missed the biology lessons where the workings of trees were explained? Trees move enormous amounts of water by caterpillary action, by which many thousands of caterpillars each carry as much water as they can manage.  Rolling Eyes 

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Post  Atlas Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:02 am

tongue Yer daft bat. - Love that one.  Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy 
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Post  cyfrifia Wed Feb 26, 2014 10:38 am

The right kind of trees need to be in the right places, to slow the rate of water run-off from hills, retain soil from water erosion, absorb wind energy, transpire rainwater and help the land absorb it. These are only the flood-related aspects of understanding trees in landscape.

This may begin with understanding osmosis and capillary action, the slow, steady and powerful processes at the foundations of the world of nature. The caterpillar may form a chrysalis of thought, eventually emerging as the bright elusive butterfly of an inkling of what is going on.

Until those who make decisions about the landscape become somewhat informed or interested in how things work, the idea of planting trees at all seems sheer lunacy to them, never mind choosing the right trees for the right places.

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Post  Chill37 Wed Feb 26, 2014 11:29 am

cyfrifia wrote:The right kind of trees need to be in the right places, to slow the rate of water run-off from hills, retain soil from water erosion, absorb wind energy, transpire rainwater and help the land absorb it. These are only the flood-related aspects of understanding trees in landscape.

This may begin with understanding osmosis and capillary action, the slow, steady and powerful processes at the foundations of the world of nature. The caterpillar may form a chrysalis of thought, eventually emerging as the bright elusive butterfly of an inkling of what is going on.

Until those who make decisions about the landscape become somewhat informed or interested in how things work, the idea of planting trees at all seems sheer lunacy to them, never mind choosing the right trees for the right places.


So what are the right types of Trees then?


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Post  keithatrochdale Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:01 pm

Chill37 wrote:

So what are the right types of Trees then?


Surely that would depend what site you want to plant them on?  Shocked 

The replacement of the hedges removed in recent times would also help, especially with soil erosion.  flower 
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Post  Chill37 Wed Feb 26, 2014 2:14 pm

keithatrochdale wrote:
Chill37 wrote:

So what are the right types of Trees then?


Surely that would depend what site you want to plant them on?  Shocked 

The replacement of the hedges removed in recent times would also help, especially with soil erosion.  flower 

OK. Taking each site in turn which would be best?

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Post  keithatrochdale Wed Feb 26, 2014 6:51 pm



No idea, need to ask an expert.

I believe that willow can be useful on wet ground.
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Post  cyfrifia Wed Feb 26, 2014 10:50 pm

Around Rochdale, a start could be made just replacing natural trees that have been lost, Scots pine on the tops, more scrub oak, rowan, beech and birch in cloughs and lower down, new hedges of hawthorn, holly, blackthorn and elder. In the valley bottom, and anywhere damp, crack willow, elder and black willow. People who know particular places will recommend other trees. For specific places further afield, particular types of trees may be helpful in different ways. For flood prevention, it needs a lot of woodland, preferably broadleaf, and well established, to make a real difference, but even some is helpful.

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Post  Atlas Thu Feb 27, 2014 1:38 am




affraid I'm in the process of removing a couple of thousand at the moment. Over the next couple of years. I suppose that makes me a bad person and a 'flood-monger'. Tch - and here's me thinking I was quite a nice guy underneath.  Sad Rolling Eyesaffraid


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Post  cyfrifia Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:14 am



What sort of trees are you removing, Atlas, and why? Perhaps you can be persuaded to leave some of them to stand, or to prune and pollard in some cases?

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=156

I expect you have some good reason to set about that work, which illustrates what goes on really. Individuals and businesses always have reasons why they want to chop trees down, and this adds up to massive loss of trees thoughout the landscape.

Deforestation, commercially driven or to clear land for subsistence farming is continuing too rapidly on a global scale. Organisations and charities from the UK go out to far flung countries to run tree planting schemes, we tend to overlook that exactly the same applies here.

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Post  keithatrochdale Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:30 am




Atlas I do hope that you are re-planting trees in their place.  bounce

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Post  cyfrifia Thu Feb 27, 2014 2:00 pm

For land heavily contaminated with asbestos, what you don't want is individual, tall broadleaf trees, or shallow rooted species which may be toppled by the wind, bringing up asbestos with the roots.

Small, tenacious, interlocking trees, hawthorn, holly and quickthorn, gorse, dog rose and bush ivy probably, planted in a continuous area and trimmed down if it grows higher than about six feet. This should form a fairly dense and windproof protection for the soil, to prevent it being disturbed. Ideally you don't want people going into the area without supervision, dense interlocking thornbushes will discourage this and provide cover for birds etc.

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Post  Atlas Fri Feb 28, 2014 1:45 am

There is a clearance program for my 6 miles of trackbed and a plantation of fir I bought in the 1990's. The clearance is for operational use and future development and the fir plantation for excess life. (That means - the fir trees are dangerous and falling of their own accord being now 95 years old and passed their life expectancy and the deciduous unfarmed or managed for the last 30 years which are creating 'dead' areas.) In truth many of the deciduous are being coppiced to allow for future growth and to stop any possibilities of erosion due to the wasting of dead rootage and will ultimately grow back but in a more managed manner. I live in an area of heavy woodland and forests. The shameful fact is that most of the woodlands have not been managed for the last 100 years and have become wild and in may cases 'dead'. Although a wonderful habitat for many species of wildlife and fungi many are impassible due to fouled drainage and dead/fallen trees. It then becomes a 'toss-up' between dereliction/wildlife/waste-lands and human resource. If I said to you that a thousand hectares of previous farmland and woodlands are simply being left to their own devices in this one small given area and mostly owned by two ancient estates and NEVER looked at, let alone anything else, from one decade to the next, would you consider that such should be left in their ownership - or - given the dearth of workable woodlands around many of our towns and cities, that such 'uncared for/derelict' areas should be taken into public ownership and 'farmed' for the use of everyone? Raises a very interesting point don't you think???
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Post  cyfrifia Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:57 am

Quite interesting.

Pruning and coppicing of trees near a railway trackbed is practical, living root systems stabilise the earth, especially on slopes. Contractors tend to cut down trees too low and kill them, something of a scorched earth policy, better to go at it a bit more gently.

Perhaps the falling fir trees you mention are a commercial crop, a shallow rooted species never intended to be permanent. Neglect of ancient woodland can be good management, allowing things to sort themselves out, but a woodland as you describe, with drainage channels neglected would benefit from proper thought-out management.

We have very little well managed forest for people to walk in and enjoy, a lot is commercial pine with a deep litter of dead branches and clogged drainage ditches on the floor, impossible to walk in. What natural woodland we do have tends to be on land spared because it is steep or inaccessible. Not many people have the chance to walk through a well managed, fairly flat forest of ancient beeches in the springtime. If the public can have more and easier access to such delightful woodland there might be more awareness of it's importance.

Who controls the landscape and how it is managed is always a big issue, high on the agenda now with the flooding. Looks like decisions will be made on 'expert' advice and a lot of money spent by government.

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