Leeds must become more resilient to flooding after storms Ciara and Dennis - YEP letters

After the recent storms Ciara and Dennis, all the usual calls for increased flood defences appear in the news with local councillors panning the government for lack of action.
By Gemma Jimmison
Published 26th Feb 2020, 11:45 BST
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Mark Woodhead, Wakefield

The trouble is that to provide adequate hard defences for all towns and cities just is not possible.

The trouble with the hard defence route is that you protect a certain locality but at further risk to the ‘next guy’ down river – sending the water higher and faster their way.

Leeds should be more resilient when it comes to floodingLeeds should be more resilient when it comes to flooding
Leeds should be more resilient when it comes to flooding
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Surely now we all need to look at landowners - and farmers in particular - to not only get planting trees wherever possible to ‘slow the flow’ by interception, transpiration and trees’ root systems breaking up subsoil to allow infiltration, but also to look at abandoning costly conventional farming (ie the massive use of artificial fertilisers, pesticides, fungicides etc).

Regenerative agricultural practices, such as No-Till and cover cropping, to improve soil health and soil organic matter levels to make the fields retain more water and prevent soil erosion should be used.

More opinion: How many more storms must Leeds weather before Government finally listens to our flooding battle? - Laura Collins, YEP EditorEver wondered why floodwater is so brown? It’s hundreds of tonnes of topsoil floating away, washed off the land upstream.

More frequent and extreme flooding can be expected year-on-year. We need to get more resilient as a nation, in readiness for worse to come.

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