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A solution to flooding...


Chris Plumb

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You would be very surprised how your streams have changed from the past ,most going anywhere near even hamlets were heavily managed in the past and laws forced landowners to maintain them and ditches with severe consequences if they didnt .

Ofcourse fast running streams were probably exempt if they didnt have any function for transport but most had mills etc

Not talking about last century or even the one before but from at least the bronze age when water was the highways.

 

The river wey here is a fine example classed for some strange reason as unavigable but only a 1000 years ago barges used it ,the river (not much more than a stream here now) was at least 4 feet deeper and a lot wider ,compared to the past our "natural" rivers and streams are nothing of tbe sort

So uless your streams run vertical in the past tberes a huge chance they are not as natural as you think

 

If you look at a place called waverley abbey theres a great number of streams in the area most are long silted up but 90% are man made by the friars ,this ofcourse ceased when henry the 8th got annoyed ,infact most of the lakes around here are from the time as well ,just because theres no obvious reasons nor people living in an area now does not mean there was no-one there in the past

Our ancestors were not idiots as some think the land management we see today is nothing compared to the past ,as for flooding all that went on floodplains was cows who dont mind getting their feet wet and strangely waverly abbey that got flooded many times but god works etc.....

 

I can recommend a series with paul heiny? in a canoe ,he discovered some very strange things in what are now silted streams ,some even in living memory but now neglected

 

I did read somewhere a halfwhit suggesting when oil has gone it would be easy to go back to steam ,unfortunately despite it being plausible its highly unlikely as all the little ponds evey couple of miles along roads that first let cattle drink as they were herded around the country then steam wagons (all maintained by landowners) have long gone due to the missmanagement of the land today

 

One of my local gravel pits together with the adjacent river 'Ver' near St Albans was once a small inland port where Roman barges once bought goods from London ( Londinium) up to the Roman city of St Albans ( Verulamium), but the river 'Ver' is now little more than a stream which is less than a foot deep.

 

The nearby river Colne is little more than a land drain that dries up completely during the summer; I can remember catching Chub and Roach in it back in the 60s; but now you have to go nearly all the way to Watford before it is deep enough to hold fish.

 

Keith

Edited by BoldBear

Happiness is Fish shaped (it used to be woman shaped but the wife is getting on a bit now)

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One of my favourite haunts in the past was the upper reaches of the little river Eden in Kent. At and above Crowhurst there were a series of tiny weirs, brick built with wooden boards which could be added to or removed as needed to control the flow and levels. Obviously had all been built and managed but quite what for I never found out, most of the local farmers hadn't any idea, but I did think it had been done to maintain a sufficient level of water to be used as a trout fishery?

 

Now this river floods if you pee in it, always has done since I first fished it in the early 1950's, the water is over the banks and rushing downstream to join the Medway (similarly managed in the past and floods just as quickly)

 

Almost all the tiny weirs (sluices) on the upper Eden have gone, some removed by EA, most simply collapsed due to neglect and erosion, the weir pools have silted up and so now the silt is steadily washed downstream.

 

Yalding is always in the news when it gets its regular dose of Eden, Medway, Beult and Teise floodwater. Has done for all my lifetime, certainly for the 64 years I fished that area, and yet still the residents seem surprised and complain that nothing is done. The area is mainly almost flat so the rivers flow slowly.

 

There is an answer, a series of canals or whatever cut across the area,5 or 6 X 40 foot wide, fed by smaller ones channeling the floodwaters out to sea, the main river maintained by a series of gates to be opened allowing the floods to disperse down these when rain threatens.

 

Do you think the residents would pay for all that? Plenty of models to be seen throughout the world, I've seen similar in Japan and the USA

 

By contrast there is the Great Stour, also in Kent but with a much steeper gradient, this rarely floods

 

I also used to fish the Arun a lot, most winters the fields were flooded for weeks, and at some time(60's?) the river was dredged and straightened and a further channel cut, this certainly reduced the flooding.

 

Den

"When through the woods and forest glades I wanderAnd hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,And hear the brook, and feel the breeze;and see the waves crash on the shore,Then sings my soul..................

for all you Spodders. https://youtu.be/XYxsY-FbSic

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One of my favourite haunts in the past was the upper reaches of the little river Eden in Kent. At and above Crowhurst there were a series of tiny weirs, brick built with wooden boards which could be added to or removed as needed to control the flow and levels. Obviously had all been built and managed but quite what for I never found out, most of the local farmers hadn't any idea, but I did think it had been done to maintain a sufficient level of water to be used as a trout fishery?

 

 

 

Now this river floods if you pee in it, always has done since I first fished it in the early 1950's, the water is over the banks and rushing downstream to join the Medway (similarly managed in the past and floods just as quickly)

 

Almost all the tiny weirs (sluices) on the upper Eden have gone, some removed by EA, most simply collapsed due to neglect and erosion, the weir pools have silted up and so now the silt is steadily washed downstream.

 

Yalding is always in the news when it gets its regular dose of Eden, Medway, Beult and Teise floodwater. Has done for all my lifetime, certainly for the 64 years I fished that area, and yet still the residents seem surprised and complain that nothing is done. The area is mainly almost flat so the rivers flow slowly.

 

There is an answer, a series of canals or whatever cut across the area,5 or 6 X 40 foot wide, fed by smaller ones channeling the floodwaters out to sea, the main river maintained by a series of gates to be opened allowing the floods to disperse down these when rain threatens.

 

Do you think the residents would pay for all that? Plenty of models to be seen throughout the world, I've seen similar in Japan and the USA

 

By contrast there is the Great Stour, also in Kent but with a much steeper gradient, this rarely floods

 

I also used to fish the Arun a lot, most winters the fields were flooded for weeks, and at some time(60's?) the river was dredged and straightened and a further channel cut, this certainly reduced the flooding.

 

Den

The management was probably for mills Den ,no factories back in the past so if an area had water it had mills ,a fair few as well going by this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Eden,_Kent

Mills do two things they silt the stream above them so periodically need cleaning out and below them they scour out the bed so what we see as streams today were highly managed artificial waterways ,even more so if you could get a boat on them ,then totally artificial waterways were built the mill ponds ,leats and races so there was still a passage of navigable water past them

Our natural landscape has in the main been very unnatural for 4 thousand years or more

Edited by chesters1

Believe NOTHING anyones says or writes unless you witness it yourself and even then your eyes can deceive you

None of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" crap it just means i have at least two enemies!

 

There is only one opinion i listen to ,its mine and its ALWAYS right even when its wrong

 

Its far easier to curse the darkness than light one candle

 

Mathew 4:19

Grangers law : anything i say will  turn out the opposite or not happen at all!

Life insurance? you wont enjoy a penny!

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson

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Depends on your landscape;whilst many lowland rivers have been managed to extinction- see Charles Rangely Wilson's excellent book Silt Road re the Wye (the HIgh Wycombe one ) many upland rivers have been substantially unchanged for centuries .THey are affected insidiously by pollution and abstraction of course but a river like the Swale or Ure looks more or less how it did in Turner's day.

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I think this is a good project, more of this would be a good thing:

 

http://www.cambrianwildwood.org/

 

I still donated a few quid to their crowdfunder start-up project even after I'd found out that George "smug git" Monbiot was their patron, which is saying something.

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Depends on your landscape;whilst many lowland rivers have been managed to extinction- see Charles Rangely Wilson's excellent book Silt Road re the Wye (the HIgh Wycombe one ) many upland rivers have been substantially unchanged for centuries .THey are affected insidiously by pollution and abstraction of course but a river like the Swale or Ure looks more or less how it did in Turner's day.

Unfortunately the swale has been changed since roman times due to mining ,as you can read here the tributaries suffered as well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Swale

I doubt theres few natural rivers despite what they look like today

Wheres theres natural obstacles i have no doubt we simply went around them and carried on using the river above and below

 

I find it remarkable with all our modern marvels and sciences our ancestors managed rivers better than us .

Just think in 90% of the population fish on fridays was definitely course fish and they were caught on a huge scale but appeared plentiful ,now with our advances and only a tiny fraction of a percent of fish being eaten theres far less!

As for flooding its only a problem if it interferes with man ,animals do fine as do fish and birds ,its natures form of fertilising the soil ,the Egyption civilisation would have never happened without it

Edited by chesters1

Believe NOTHING anyones says or writes unless you witness it yourself and even then your eyes can deceive you

None of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" crap it just means i have at least two enemies!

 

There is only one opinion i listen to ,its mine and its ALWAYS right even when its wrong

 

Its far easier to curse the darkness than light one candle

 

Mathew 4:19

Grangers law : anything i say will  turn out the opposite or not happen at all!

Life insurance? you wont enjoy a penny!

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson

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I know about the lead mining already which took place primarily in the higher ground well above the river itself. You can still see the evidence up there at Arkengarthdale at Old Gang and Surrender lead mines, in respect of which I did some work a few years ago .But my point stands- spate rivers like this do not look radically different to how they appeared pre Industrial revolution.

 

But how I would like to have seen the lower Great Ouse area pre fen drainage ...that would have been a little different to those geometric fields we have now.

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