The winter flooding that has been seen across the UK is catastrophic for all of those concerned. Storm Ciara and Dennis rolled across the UK recently bringing with them high winds, rain and storm surges which seemed to affect everyone. Transport infrastructure took some heavy direct hits. From the closure of bridges, railway lines and roads as well as flight and ferry cancellations, all elements of transport infrastructure were affected. But the effects of the storms are being more widely seen in the flooding that continues to occur. In the most recent CIHT podcast “The Climate crisis, flooding and green infrastructure” experts outline solutions available from SUDS to green infrastructure.
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The winter flooding that has been seen across the UK is catastrophic for all of those concerned. Storm Ciara and Dennis rolled across the UK recently bringing with them high winds, rain and storm surges which seemed to affect everyone.
Transport infrastructure took some heavy direct hits. From the closure of bridges, railway lines and roads as well as flight and ferry cancellations, all elements of transport infrastructure were affected. But the effects of the storms are being more widely seen in the flooding that continues to occur.
In the most recent CIHT podcast “The Climate crisis, flooding and green infrastructure” Jane Rickson, Professor of soil erosion at Cranfield University says that these extreme storms are something that we will unfortunately have to get used to.
The effects of climate change and man-made changes to the natural and built environment mean that extreme weather events are going to be the new normal. Not only because actual storm events will occur more often but also the effects of the storms will be more dramatic. Rainfall is likely to be more intense with its effects magnified as soil erosion, environmental degradation and run-off caused by urban growth all having a having a major detrimental impact.
The podcast highlights in detail how various schemes are trying to alleviate the effects of this new normal. Those initiatives include the remodelling of the city landscape in places such as Sheffield and London. Zac Tudor, Sheffield Council’s principle landscape architect explains how the Great Green Scheme is being developed to alleviate flooding problems that have blighted the city on several occasions including the major flooding event that occurred in the summer of 2007. Whilst civil engineer Rob Webster from Civic Engineers and George Warren who leads the climate change adaption team at the Greater London Authority highlight various project ideas within urban environments that can have a dramatic mitigation effect. Ideas include the construction of wetlands to aid the capture and storage of not only excess water run off but also microplastics produced by urban transport to the introduction of greater street biodiversity to aid water retention as well as increasing mental wellbeing.
The CIHT podcast “The Climate crisis, flooding and green infrastructure” is now available at
For the other CIHT podcasts click here.
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