̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Flooding

Holding back the flood

plc32 — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 16:20:20 +0000

Researchers from Cambridge, Exeter and St Andrews urge politicians to help “trapped” communities fight the effects of climate change instead of fleeing.

Sea change for Hull

lw355 — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 08:55:44 +0000

With a changing climate and rising sea levels putting cities at risk of flooding, it’s crucial for planners to increase their cities’ resilience. A new tool has been developed to help them – and it started with the throwing of a thousand virtual hexagons over Hull.

New book shows how to build a more flood resilient future

ta385 — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 08:00:00 +0000

We urgently need to adapt our built and natural environment to be more flood resilient in the face of climate change, a new book shows.

Opinion: Methods for protecting England’s coastal communities ‘not fit for purpose’

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 16:42:50 +0000

In October 2018, a stark report suggested that current methods being used to protect England’s coastal communities are ‘not fit for purpose’.

̽��ֱ��Committee on Climate Change’s Managing the coast in a changing climate report showed that between 2005 and 2014, over 15,000 new buildings were built in coastal areas at significant risk of coastal flooding and/or erosion.

However, if the government meets its ambitious housing targets, up to 90,000 homes built in the next five years might be in areas of significant annual flood risk from all sources of flooding, including coastal flooding.

Practically every winter we are reminded of how dynamic our coastline is. And many of us see at very close quarters how vulnerable many communities in the UK are to coastal flooding and erosion.

But by the time summer arrives, the need for a wide and deep debate as to how we deal with rising sea levels and potential future increases in maritime storminess around the UK coastline evaporates.

Our approach to coastal management issues is to react to failures of coastal defences, either natural or man-made, rather than proactively working towards future-proofing our coastline.

Much of the UK coastline is already eroding, as testified by the dominance of coastal cliff scenery. But coastal erosion and flooding, and consequent damage to infrastructure, disruption of services and modifications to the coastal landscape will become more common over the next century due to climate change.

Specifically, rising sea levels will increase the probability of extreme coastal water levels and this could be exacerbated by potentially larger and more frequent extreme waves due to changes to the wave climate.

At the same time, our coastal zone is far from natural, with numerous clifftop properties and extensive development at the back of beaches, on top of dunes and in low-lying coastal valleys. It is obvious that coastal communities are facing significant future challenges.

Much existing coastal development took place when our understanding of coastal dynamics was limited and when climate change, and its consequences for the coast, was not yet a reality.

That development is already under threat, and the scale of the threat will only increase. Dealing with this issue requires a balanced consideration of the various adaptation strategies, ranging from ‘hard’ coastal protection such as sea walls to more sustainable solutions such as supplementing the amount of sand and gravel on our beaches, and managed realignment.

There will always be locations where only hard coastal defences will do.

But if we wish to avoid piling ever-increasing costs – in both financial and environmental terms – on future generations, we need a more sophisticated, integrated discussion of zoning (to avoid building in high-risk zones).

It may be stating the obvious, but a relatively easy win is to avoid more development in the dynamic coastal zone unless it is absolutely essential.

̽��ֱ��concept of Coastal Change Management Areas (CCMAs) can play a key role here.

̽��ֱ��National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires councils to identify CCMAs where rates of shoreline change are expected to be significant over the next 100 years, taking account of climate change.

̽��ֱ��first local plan to make use of CCMAs to inform coastal planning is in Cornwall, where the Newquay Neighbourhood Plan (NNP) is currently under consultation.

̽��ֱ��NNP recommends that proposals for development in CCMAs should only be supported where they are for “small, temporary structures that will not add to the erosion risk”, and rules out residential development.

Proposals for redevelopment, enlargement or extension of existing buildings that fall within the exclusion zone, and proposals to change the use of existing buildings into residential usage, will not be supported either.

In the NNP, the landward limit of CCMAs represents the estimated 100-year erosion line with an additional buffer of 10 metres. Another 2m buffer zone is added if the coastal path is located within the CCMA.

Continued investment into the coastal zone will reduce the natural capability of the coast to respond to hazards, while at the same time passing the financial burden of protecting such coastal development onto future generations.

In order to future-proof our dynamic coast, we need to implement an appropriate buffer zone to inform coastal planning decisions, and these buffer zones will need to be site-specific and science-based.

They would also require regular updating in light of new data, understanding and predictions of climate change and its consequences.

̽��ֱ��Committee on Climate Change’s report has demonstrated the scale of future potential problems, and our own research heavily supports their findings.

By implementing a CCMA-informed policy that is consistent on a national scale, potentially with the policy outlined in the NNP as a blueprint, we can better protect our coastlines now and for future generations.

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

Professor Tom Spencer from Cambridge’s Department of Geography and Professor Gerd Masselink from the ̽��ֱ�� of Plymouth say evidence suggests there should be far stricter controls on coastal developments.

Christopher Martin

Teignmouth seafront

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Opinion: Droughts and floods: India’s water crises demand more than grand projects

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 16:17:48 +0000

India is facing one of its most serious droughts in recent memory – official estimates suggest that at least 330m people are likely to be affected by acute shortages of water. As the subcontinent awaits the imminent arrival of the monsoon rains, bringing relief to those who have suffered the long, dry and exceptionally warm summer, the crisis affecting India’s water resources is high on the public agenda.

Unprecedented drought demands unconventional responses, and there have been some fairly unusual attempts to address this year’s shortage. Perhaps most dramatic was the deployment of railway wagons to transport 500,000 litres of water per day across the Deccan plateau, with the train traversing more than 300km to provide relief to the district of Latur in Maharashtra state.

̽��ֱ��need to shift water on this scale sheds light on the key issue that makes water planning in the Indian subcontinent so challenging. While the region gets considerable precipitation most years from the annual monsoon, the rain tends to fall in particular places – and for only a short period of time (about three months). This water needs to be stored, and made to last for the entire year.

In most years, it also means that there is often too much water in some places, resulting in as much distress due to flooding as there currently is due to drought. So there is a spatial challenge as well – water from the surplus regions needs to reach those with a shortfall, and the water train deployed in Maharashtra is one attempt to achieve this.

Grand ambitions

̽��ֱ��current crisis has led the Indian government to announce that it hopes to resurrect an ambitious plan to try and link the major river basins of the country, under the Interlinking of Rivers (ILR) Project. ̽��ֱ��scale and magnitude of this exercise, both financial (it is estimated to cost more than £100 billion) and in engineering terms (involving the transfer of 174 billion cubic metres of water annually) is unprecedented.

Critics suggest that it is unlikely to work and is likely to create further ecological and social disruption, especially due to the uncertainties in weather and precipitation patterns due to climate change. There is a risk that other alternatives, perhaps less dramatic in their scope, might be neglected in the rush for the big headline-grabbing schemes.

A specific way forward might be to work more directly with natural processes to secure the regeneration of water sources at the local level. In the dry plains, this involves the revitalisation of aquifers and the replenishment of groundwater through recharge during the monsoon, as has been attempted already in some regions. In the hilly areas, there is considerable scope for investment in spring recharge and source sustainability, as has been undertaken on a significant scale in the Himalayan state of Sikkim.

Our current research is examining the need to invest in source protection and sustainability in detail, especially in the Himalayas, which have been described as the “Water Towers of Asia”. Urbanisation trends in the region suggest that there will be a growing number of small towns and settlements that will need water infrastructure to meet their needs – and there is a critical need to secure these water sources.

Deforestation, land conversion and degradation, as well as urban encroachment due to illegal construction, pose major threats to the water bearing capacity of the Himalayan landscape. There is an urgent need to invest in the identification, protection and restoration of these “critical water zones”.

Potential for conflict

̽��ֱ��Himalayan context also demonstrates the transboundary nature of the water issue. ̽��ֱ��Hindu Kush Himalayan region extends across eight countries, from Afghanistan to Myanmar, and supports ten major river systems, potentially affecting the lives of more than 1.5 billion people. Cooperation across political boundaries is vital to manage these fragile resources, further threatened by the uncertain impacts of climate change.

̽��ֱ��Hindu Kush Himalayan region is the source for ten major river systems in Asia. Author provided

There is some hope, despite three major wars since independence, that India and Pakistan have managed to maintain some semblance of cooperation under the Indus Waters Treaty, which was negotiated in 1960. However, analysts suggest that regional conflict over water is going to worsen – and much depends on the role of China, which is the dominant upstream water controller in the region.

̽��ֱ��other key response is managing water demand – and making explicit choices over alternative uses. This year, the shifting of Indian Premier League cricket matches away from water-scarce Maharashtra was a high-profile, though somewhat symbolic, example of an explicit prioritisation of water use.

More generally, though, managing water demands has rarely been prioritised. Water-thirsty crops – sugarcane, for example – dominate the landscape in the dry regions of Marathwada and Vidarbha in Maharashtra. Farmers receive subsidies on energy, which allow them to pump dry the already-depleted aquifers in other parts of the country. And, there are important issues of distributional equity – the poor in many urban contexts pay significantly more per litre for erratic and unreliable water, while their richer neighbours luxuriate in swimming pools and spend weekends on plush golf greens.

Water is an issue that cuts across all aspects of social and economic life in India. Compartmentalised responses are unlikely to be adequate to address the current crises. There is a need for an integrated approach, which addresses source sustainability, land use management, agricultural strategies, demand management and the distribution and pricing of water. With growing pressures due to climate change, migration and population growth, creative and imaginative governance is needed to manage this precious resource.

Bhaskar Vira, Reader in Political Economy at the Department of Geography and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College; Director, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Bhaskar Vira (Department of Geography and ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute) discusses ways of dealing with the crisis affecting India’s water resources.

Rita Willaert

Brahmaputra - Assam

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Waterworld: can we learn to live with flooding?

lw355 — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 09:52:17 +0000

In December 2015, Storm Desmond hit the north of the UK. In its wake came floods, the misery of muddy, polluted water surging through homes and the disruption of closed businesses, schools and roads.

Rapid urban growth and progressively unpredictable weather have focused attention on the resilience of cities worldwide not just to extreme events, but also to heavier-than-normal rainstorms, and raised questions as to how flood risk can be managed.

There is of course no ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy. For some areas, defence is a possibility. For others, retreat is the only option. “But for those unable to do either, we need to fundamentally rewrite the rule book on how we perceive water as a hazard to towns and cities,” says Ed Barsley, PhD student working with Dr Emily So in the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Centre for Risk in the Built Environment (CURBE). Barsley believes that adaptation and planning for resilience can provide a unique opportunity for increasing the quality of towns and cities (see panel).

Dr Dick Fenner from Cambridge's Department of Engineering agrees that resilience to water should be regarded positively. He is part of the UK-wide Blue–Green Cities project, which is developing strategies to manage urban flood risk in ways that also pay dividends in many other areas, through ‘greening’ the city. “We want to turn rainfall into a win-win-win event,” he says.

When it comes to dealing with floods, one of the major difficulties that many cities face is the impermeability of the built environment. In a city that is paved, concreted and asphalted, surface water can’t soak away quickly and naturally into the earth.

Newcastle city centre, for instance, is around 92% impermeable, and has suffered major flooding in the past. “ ̽��ֱ��‘flood footprint’ of the 2012 ‘Toon Monsoon’ caused around £129 million in direct damages and £102 million in indirect damages, rippling to economic sectors far beyond the physical location of the event,” says Fenner.

“Traditionally, cities have been built to capture water run-off in gutters and drains, to be piped away. But where is away? And how big would we have to build these pipes if the city can’t cope now?” he adds. ̽��ֱ��principal behind a ‘Blue–Green City’ is to create a more natural water cycle – one in which the city’s water management and its green infrastructure can be brought together.

Cities worldwide are already taking up the concept of ‘greening’, using permeable paving, bioswales (shallow ditches filled with vegetation), street planting, roof gardens and pocket parks. Green infrastructure benefits health and biodiversity, and can help combat rising CO₂ levels, heat island effects, air pollution and noise.

“Not only do they also provide a place for water to soak away,” says Fenner, “they can even create resources from water – such as generating energy from the water flow through sustainable drainage systems and providing places for amenity and recreation.”

All well and good but with a long list of potential ‘blue–green’ choices, and an equally long list of benefits, how do cities choose the best options?

One of the major outputs of the Blue–Green Cities initiative is a ‘toolbox’ for authorities, planners, businesses and communities to help them decide. Using Newcastle ̽��ֱ��’s CityCat model, the team assessed how well green infrastructures performed in holding back surface flows, and used novel tracer techniques to follow the movement and trapping of sediments during intense storms. Then they mapped the benefits in a geographic information system (GIS) to identify physical locations that are ‘benefit hotspots’.

̽��ֱ��tools were developed by evaluating the performance benefits of green infrastructure gathered from sites in both the UK and USA. As part of a recent 12-month demonstration study in Newcastle, a Learning Action Alliance network was set up with local stakeholders that has, says Fenner, led to new opportunities that reflect the priorities and preferences of communities and local residents.

Now, Newcastle City Council, the Environment Agency, Northumbrian Water, Newcastle ̽��ֱ��, Arup and Royal Haskoning DHV have combined to be the first organisations in the country to explicitly commit to a blue–green approach, as recommended by the research. ̽��ֱ��hope is that other local and national organisations will follow suit.

Embracing resilience, as these organisations are doing, is vitally important when dealing with natural hazards, says Emily So, who leads CURBE: “We should remember that flooding is a natural process and a hazard we need to learn to live with. It is often the disjointed configuration of the built environment that results in it being a risk to the communities. Our aim should be to design to reduce the impact of, and our recovery time from, this natural hazard.”

Fenner adds: “Continuing to deliver an effective and reliable water and wastewater service despite disruptive challenges such as flooding is hard, but vital; it requires continuous and dramatic innovation. In the future, we will see fully water-sensitive cities, where water management is so good that it’s almost as if the city isn’t there.”

̽��ֱ��Blue–Green Cities project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), involves researchers from nine UK universities and is led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Nottingham. A parallel project, Clean Water for All, funded by EPSRC and the National Science Foundation, connects the team with researchers in the USA.

Inset image: Ed Barsley.

Flash floods, burst riverbanks, overflowing drains, contaminants leaching into waterways: some of the disruptive, damaging and hazardous consequences of having too much rain. But can cities be designed and adapted to live more flexibly with water – to treat it as friend rather than foe?

We need to fundamentally rewrite the rule book on how we perceive water as a hazard to towns and cities

Ed Barsley

Artist's interpretation of existing (left) and adapted (right) responses to flooding

Flood risk as a driver for change

While the Blue–Green Cities project focuses on urban drainage at times of normal to excessive rainfall, Ed Barsley is more concerned with helping communities consider the consequences of extreme events.

“Floods are devastating in their impact and flood risk is often seen as a burden to be endured,” says Barsley, “but future proofing and planning for resilience can and should be used as a driver for increasing the quality of buildings, streets and neighbourhoods – a chance for exciting change in our cities.”

As a case study, Barsley is using the village of Yalding in Kent, which has endured physical, economic and psychological impacts as a result of flooding.

He looked at how each house in the village prepared for and was affected by its most recent flood, its location and building material, and even its millimetre threshold height; and then he looked at future flood risk scenarios. ̽��ֱ��result is a methodology for assessing resilience that can be used to help inform and plan for adaptation, and is transferable to other communities large or small across the UK and worldwide.

“When we communicated the risks to the community, we found that resilience means different things to different people. Understanding priorities can help them tailor their own strategy to be contextually appropriate,” explains Barsley, who is special advisor on flood risk in the South East to Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for the Department for Communities and Local Government.

For homes in which resistance measures like flood barriers will be overcome, one option might be to regard the lower floor as a sacrificial space – an area that can be flooded without disrupting waste, power or water. In Yalding, there are examples of homeowners who have done just this and added an extra storey to their homes.

“I’d like to see resilience rewarded and for us to begin to live with water in a different manner. Embedding long-term resilience has huge potential for creating vibrant and enriching spaces.”

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Yes

Up to four-fifths of wetlands worldwide could be at risk from sea level rise

sc604 — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 08:38:49 +0000

Using a new model to measure the possible effects on wetlands on a global scale, the researchers, from the UK and Germany, modelled the impacts of different scenarios for sea level rise to the end of this century.

They found that even in the event of ‘low’ global sea level rise (around 30 centimetres), much of the world’s wetlands, particularly on ‘micro-tidal’ coasts, are vulnerable. Around 70 percent of the world’s wetlands are found on micro-tidal coasts, where the range between high spring tide and low spring tide is less than two metres, such as in the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico. ̽��ֱ��results are reported in the journal Global and Planetary Change.

Across the globe, wetlands cover more than 750,000 square kilometres, an area more than three times the size of the UK. Coastal wetlands, which include salt marshes, mangrove forests and mud flats, protect against erosion and flooding, provide habitat and food for wildlife, improve water quality, support commercial fisheries, and can store large amounts of carbon.

“Wetlands are particularly sensitive to environmental change, and are being lost worldwide due to human activity, such as conversion to agriculture, and through the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels,” said Dr Tom Spencer of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Geography, the paper’s lead author.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is very likely that sea levels will rise during the 21^st century, but by how much depends on a variety of factors, including thermal expansion caused by ocean warming, loss of ice in glaciers and ice sheets, and the reduction of liquid water storage on land.

̽��ֱ��Wetland Global Extent Index, published in 2014, estimates that between 1970 and 2008, natural coastal wetlands declined by nearly 50 percent. A main reason for the high vulnerability of coastal wetlands to sea level rise is coastal ‘squeeze’, a consequence of long-term coastal protection strategies, such as dikes. While dikes provide flood defence to coastal populations and infrastructure, they prevent wetlands from moving landwards and upwards: dikes leave them with nowhere to go.

Wetlands such as salt marshes are made up of grasses and shrubs and are sensitive to environmental change, whereas wetlands such as mangrove forests, since they are trees, are far more resilient, at least in the short term.

Previous attempts to quantify the risk to wetlands posed by rising sea levels have focused on small areas, or have only looked at wetlands being lost through ‘drowning’ of the plants and shrubs, and not at how wetlands will ‘migrate’ inland.

̽��ֱ��model that Spencer and his collaborators from the ̽��ֱ�� of Southampton and Middlesex ̽��ֱ�� in the UK, and the Geographisches Institut and the Global Climate Forum in Germany, have developed assesses biophysical and socio-economic consequences of sea level rise and socio-economic development, taking into account coastal erosion, coastal flooding, wetland change and salinity intrusion.

̽��ֱ��researchers used their model to look at three different sea level rise scenarios (low, medium and high), combined with different scenarios for dike construction (no dikes, widespread dikes and maximum dikes), and assessed what the effect on coastal wetlands would be for each.

They found that if global sea levels rise by 100 centimetres combined with maximum dike construction, global wetland losses may reach 78 percent. For a rise of 50 centimetres, between 46 and 59 percent of coastal wetlands could be lost. For sea level rise around 30 centimetres, wetlands in micro-tidal regions are the most vulnerable.

“What our model does is provide better-informed projections about what might happen to wetlands over the coming century on a global scale,” said Spencer.

One of the issues which the researchers looked at was the use of dikes, seawalls, levees and other forms of coastal protection, and finding the balance between protecting cities and infrastructure from flooding, and protecting the wetlands which also play a key role in flood defences.

“One of the key things this project shows is that we need integrated management of wetlands and coastal protections on a national and international scale,” said Spencer. “Because if you don’t, in many cases if you protect one section of the coast, all you’re doing is moving the problem somewhere else.”

Countering these potential wetland losses will require both global responses such as climate mitigation to minimise sea level rise, and regional responses such as the maximisation of accommodation space and sediment supply on low-lying coasts.

̽��ֱ��researchers have already begun working on the next version of their model, which will also consider the effect that storms have on wetlands.

̽��ֱ��research was supported in part by the European Union.

Reference:
Thomas Spencer et. al. ‘Global coastal wetland change under sea-level rise and related stresses: ̽��ֱ��DIVA Wetland Change Model.’ Global and Planetary Change (2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2015.12.018

Researchers have modelled how wetlands might respond to rising sea levels, and found that as much as four-fifths of wetlands worldwide could be lost by the end of the century if sea levels continue to rise.

We need integrated management of wetlands and coastal protections on a national and international scale.

Tom Spencer

By Anthony Bley, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Wetlands in Cape May, New Jersey, USA

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Yes

‘Unprecedented’ storms and floods are more common than we think

lw355 — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 10:48:44 +0000

A team of experts from the Universities of Aberystwyth, Cambridge and Glasgow have drawn on historic records to build a clearer picture of the flooding.

They conclude that 21st-century flood events such as Storm Desmond are not exceptional or unprecedented in terms of their frequency or magnitude, and that flood frequency and flood risk forecasts would be improved by including data from flood deposits dating back hundreds of years.

Dr Tom Spencer from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said: “In the House of Commons on Monday (December 7), the Environment Secretary called the flooding in north-west England ‘unprecedented’ and ‘consistent with climate change trends’. But is this actually true?

“Conventional methods of analysing river flow gauge records cannot answer these questions because upland catchments usually have no or very short records of water levels of around 30 or 40 years. In fact, recent careful scientific analysis of palaeoflood deposits (flood deposits dating back hundreds of years) in the UK uplands shows that 21st-century floods are not unprecedented in terms of both their frequency (they were more frequent before 1960) and magnitude (the biggest events occurred during the 17th–19th centuries).”

Professor Mark Macklin, an expert in river flooding and climate change impacts at Aberystwyth ̽��ֱ��, said: “UK documentary records and old flood deposits dating back hundreds of years indicate that these floods are not unprecedented, which means we are grossly underestimating flood risk and endangering peoples’ lives.

“In some areas, recent floods have either equalled or exceeded the largest recorded events and these incidences can be ascribed to climate variability in Atlantic margin weather systems.

“It is of concern that historical data suggests there is far more capacity in the North Atlantic climate system to produce wetter and more prolonged flood-rich periods than hitherto experienced in the 21st century. Looking forward, an increased likelihood of weather extremes due to climate change means that extending our flood record using geomorphology science must be placed at the centre of flood risk assessment in the UK.”

Professor Macklin suggests that new approaches to flood risk analysis be adopted to include instrumental, documentary and most importantly palaeoflood records.

He added: “Current approaches using flood frequency analysis and flood risk assessment based on 40-50 year long flow records are far shorter than the design life of most engineering structures and strategic flood risk planning approaches. They are not fit for purpose now, let alone in a changing climate.”

Professor John Lewin from the ̽��ֱ�� of Aberystwyth said: “What is needed, is far more resilience for already-developed floodplains, and much more serious insistence that future floodplain development should be virtually curtailed. Somewhere along the line floodplain development has been allowed by local authorities and the UK government to continue regardless.”

Dr Larissa Naylor from the ̽��ֱ�� of Glasgow said: “These floods and the 2013/14 storms have shown us that our landscape is dynamic rather than static – where rivers reshape floodplains and erosion remodels our coastline – with large economic and social costs. We need to urgently consider how we plan our cities and towns, and rebuild in the wake of large flood and storm events, to live safely in our changing landscape.”

Spencer, Lewin, Macklin and Naylor are members of the British Society for Geomorphology’s Working Group on Stormy Geomorphology, who are currently finalising a global state-of-the-art analysis of the role geomorphology science can play in an age of extremes in the Wiley journal Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.

̽��ֱ��recent ‘unprecedented’ flooding in north-west England might be more common than currently believed, a group of scientists has warned.

Analysis shows that 21st-century floods are not unprecedented in terms of both their frequency and magnitude."

Tom Spencer

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Flooded lakehouse, Keswick, Cumbria, UK

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