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Case Study: Somerset Levels Flooding - Coggle Diagram
Case Study: Somerset Levels Flooding
Consequences
Social
Positive (no social positive consequences)
Negative
Over 600 homes were lost, this meant that many people were homeless and without shelter, food water etc. this meant that more accommodation, food and water had to be provided for those people putting a lot of strain on those providing humanitarian aid.
Many villages (such as Mulchney) were completely cut off, this meant that no-one could enter in or out, also meaning that it was difficult to get humanitarian aid to these areas, also if their was an emergency then it would be very difficult for the emergency services to get through to the village meaning that the emergency could not be dealt with immediately.
Journey times in the area suddenly became a lot longer due to the fact that many roads were inaccessible or flooded over. This meant that the people's conditions kept getting worse and worse as it took longer for aid to reach them.
Environment
Positive
Natural England reported that the floods had had a very little impact on wildlife and plants.
Negative
Over 6,900 hectares of agricultural land was lost as a result from the flooding, this meant that many farmers got very little income and some may have had to give up their jobs due to the lack of a decent income, this also may have had an impact on the agricultural industry, so in one way this could be an economic consequence.
Economic
Negative
Businesses in the local area lost all trade, which meant that they had no income, leading to financial decline.
Livestock had to be moved from the area and sold, this meant that farmers were being forced to sell their livestock at a point where the farmer may not have got the money he/she wanted from the livestock.
The financial cost of the flooding was between £82 million and £147 million. This meant that the government had to spend a lot of money on trying to rebuild and repair the whole area and also put other measures in place to make sure that something like this never happened again.
Positive (no positive economic consequences)
Responses
The Environmental Agency installed 62 pumps to remove 1.5 million tonnes of water.
How this aimed to help: This helped by removing tonnes of water from local areas which made it easier to move about again.
How successful was it: It was successful in helping to reduce the amount of water in an area and move it elsewhere which helped t control how much water was in the area. This was effectively controlling the severity of the flood
Another response is that over 50 defences were repaired which were originally in need of repair, which meant that the defences were now in action ready to take on a flood.
How did this aim to help: This would help to control floods in the future.
How successful was it: However, this wasn't very successful as the defences weren't actually repaired until during/after the flood, so they weren't very effective when the flood first arrived.
The Government put in a 20 year flood action plan for the Somerset Levels, which included properly dredging the River Tone and the River Parrett, repairing damaged flood banks, raising one of the roads (which leads into Muchelney), putting permanent pumps in place and making a tidal barrier to hold back tidal surges.
How successful was it: This was very successful in making sure that nothing as bad happened again, although it didn't really do anything to help prevent the Somerset Levels flood at the time.
Causes
Human: The River had not been dredged properly for 20 years leading to the fact that the River Parrett was blocked and all clogged up, which as a result meant that it couldn't carry as much water.
How it contributed to the flood: The Human causes of not dredging the river for many years contributed to the flood because it meant that extra debris built up and blocked the River. This sped up the process of the River bursting its banks, leading to floods.
Physical: A lot of rain, hurricane force winds and tidal surges caused widespread flooding. Also, a powerful jet stream (a jet stream is a narrow band of very strong wind currents that circles the Earth several kilometres above the Earth's surface), caused 12 major storms between mid-December 2013 and mid-February 2014.
How it contributed to the flood: The Physical causes contributed to the floods because the extreme amounts of precipitation in the area led to there being too much water for the River to carry.
Rank the causes in terms of how significant you think they are: 1. The powerful jet stream, causing 12 major storms between mid-December 2013 and mid-February 2014. I have ranked this as most significant because it caused the area to be clogged with an unusually extreme amount of precipitation, which the River couldn't handle. 2. The fact that the River hadn't been dredged properly for over 20 years. I have put this as the second most significant cause because it meant that the up-stream water was still coming down-stream, but only a small amount of water was escaping into the sea, meaning that it had to go somewhere else other than the River. This led to a massive bursting of banks of the River. I don't think it is as important as the first one because it would have taken longer to flood without the other cause.
Other Case Study Specific Information
Location description: The Somerset Levels are located in South-West England, in the county of Somerset. It is on the South bank of the Bristol Channel. The nearest towns/cities are Taunton and Yeovil. The Levels is a very large, flat area between the Quantock and Mendip Hills.
