Flooding in Yorkshire

barmpot

LOTSW Fanatic
This is prompted by Marianna"s question in the hatbox and there is insufficient room there to reply.

Keighley which she mentioned has the River Aire flowing through it joined by the Rver Worth (as in Keighley and Worth Valley ....) and for initial flood watch scheme the Aire is divided into two: Gargrave - Stockbridge and Stockbridge- Fairborn Ings (near to Castleford). As there is a lot of flood plain along the river course one of those two sections is always on alert for flooding; Stockbridge is in both so it is always on alert! Stockbridge is part of Keighley which I know.

As long as retaining walls hold the main problem is rising water tables which means water can seep up through the flagstones in my dungeon. To combat this the local authority provide a pump to automatically pump out such water. It was not needed at this time. The water having come through the soil is a lot cleaner than water coming directly from a river bursting its banks. I am fortunate that my ground floor has never flooded yet, if it did there would be over a thousand properties affected as I have three feet of cellar above ground level and my power supplies are well up. But rising water table scan be a problem.

The Aire Valley is wide and the sides are gentle slopes unlike the River Calder (Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd) which is a much steeper sided valley so has a greater potential for flooding. The area around Holmforth is not dis-similar.

A few cellars had to be pumped out locally, often in semi rural locations but noting on the scale of 2000 when 100s of properties in Keighley were submerged under water - some as high as five feet. As stated above it was only the basement level for me. There was some flooding in 2015 after which my pump was installed. Hebden Bridge was hit in 2013 as well as 2015.

However some of the railway services I am involved with had to be cancelled because the water was above the rails in some rural areas. Previous floods in Keighley were 1947 and some time in the 1930s - both due to an error in opening a sluice gate.
 
Of course Rod does because .................................

In the town where he was born
Lived a man who sailed the sea
and he told Rod of his life
in the land of submarines

and since he met that man Rod has

lived beneath the waves in his very own submarine [not sure its Yellow though] :)
 
Is it climate change? Global warming? Hundred year floods (once in a hundred years) are turning into annual occurrences. So perhaps it's time to do what must be done to waterproof the basement, etc. Or if nothing else ensure that everything in the basement can get wet.
 
Is it climate change? Global warming? Hundred year floods (once in a hundred years) are turning into annual occurrences. So perhaps it's time to do what must be done to waterproof the basement, etc. Or if nothing else ensure that everything in the basement can get wet.


Actually part from 2013 the flooding here has been error on the part of people operating dams or not repairing walls. @013 was rising water table.

reasons are partly increased temperature, but also where developers upstream and down stream have built on the flood plains thus removing natural capacity to absorb water.

Waterproofing the basement would not work as it comes from underneath and if that was waterproof and it overflowed in then harder to get rid of. At least as it comes up it is filtered and thus is not polluted in the same way as a river breaking its banks would be. The water was clear - just too damp.

I suppose I could market it as an indoor bathing pool, stick a motor in and call it a jacuzzi ...
 
Actually part from 2013 the flooding here has been error on the part of people operating dams or not repairing walls. @013 was rising water table.

reasons are partly increased temperature, but also where developers upstream and down stream have built on the flood plains thus removing natural capacity to absorb water.

Waterproofing the basement would not work as it comes from underneath and if that was waterproof and it overflowed in then harder to get rid of. At least as it comes up it is filtered and thus is not polluted in the same way as a river breaking its banks would be. The water was clear - just too damp.

I suppose I could market it as an indoor bathing pool, stick a motor in and call it a jacuzzi ...
Yes, developers pound telephone poles into the ground, put in parking lots, remove trees, build buildings of all sorts, and generally ignore flood plains and then everybody wonders why areas that have never flooded before are now flooding.
 
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