South East rivers

[david t]

Hello, has anyone in the south east noticed if any of the rivers have even came close to flooding this winter?

My local river Thame has came within 6 inches of breaking the banks, and I dont think the thames around oxfordshire has came close to flooding either.

Does anyone think this will have a deterimental effect on how they fish next season?

Would i be right in thinking that it might actually lead to a larger head of small fish next season, as less are killed in the floods, or lack of floods?

interesting to hear peoples views on the lack of loods this winter,

thanks dave.

[Peter Waller]

In the case of the Broads I suspect that there will be less salt incursion, and less likelyhood of ebbing flood tides washing coarse fish out to sea. So yes, perhaps fish stocks will be better next summer.

[GlennB]

There's a newspaper article about the current state of some of our rivers at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1702737,00.html

[Leon Roskilly]

Southern Water have been given a drought order to enable them to extract water from the Medway.

 

Bewl Water is way down, and they are talking about standpipes here in the Summer.

 

Rainfall after March has no effect.

 

Once the plants start growing, all rainfall gets taken up by the roots and expirated back into the atmosphere, and it's not until the die-back in the Autumn that rainfall starts getting deeper to replenish the water table, and in the Sout-east, the chalk aquifiers.

 

And it isn't helping that, as well as a developing drought, the growing season is getting longer.

Edited February 5, 2006 by Leon Roskilly

[fantasticfisherman]

well i live in the south east, and the river thames in my local area is very low and clear at the moment

[Vagabond]

The only saving grace is that we went for a walk yesterday up on the top of the Ashdown Forest, and got our walking boots very wet and muddy - plenty of marshy ground there still.

 

This huge aquifer (alternate layers of water-holding sandstone and impervious clay) is still holding water at a high level - it only releases water to the Medway and Sussex Ouse headwaters (my local trout streams) at a very slow rate - so there is always some water flowing, even in a prolonged drought.

 

However, even the largest aquifer has limits, and the proposed extraction from the Medway is bad news - especially for the middle reaches.

 

The chalk aquifers either side of us (North and South Downs) are already low and over-exploited, but dear John Prescott still wants to build yet more housing estates in the South East.

[chuby]

My local river(Mole) is low and clear.Very low rainfall this winter.Last summer saw very low water levels so we need the rain desperatly.

[poledark]

I can't understand why they can't take the water out just above the tidal limit, and pump it back up to the ressies ?

 

The river has "finished" with the water by then....

 

Den

[chesters1]

water still flowing freely through my local pond but i did hear the southern wey was low ,i wonder if theres statistics on how much water is extracted from rivers and boreholes the EA? seem to like the income from it .

A potato farm down the road must waste millions of gallons in the summer spraying their crops which i doupt are ever sold as the supermarkets can source even potato's cheaply from abroad

[wunnus]

The local stream R Gipping is well down, it came close to a flood when the snow melted

The Suffolk Stour is also low but no usual floods