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Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 1:15 pm Post subject:

JB wrote:

There would be a far greater saving from allowing floods to happen naturally and so replenish the ground water.

What do you mean by that?

Peter.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 1:25 pm Post subject:

JB wrote:

Low flush toilets are pretty standard these days and most new houses in the SE seem to be built on the assumption that you will not use the garden (hence the pathetically tiny spaces behind cramped houses). There would be a far greater saving from allowing floods to happen naturally and so replenish the ground water.

Are the two stage flushes normal? I've not seen them in the modern houses I've visited. Gardens may be small but everyone seems to spend the summer washing cars and hosing down the patio.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91� N

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 1:26 pm Post subject:

Blue Peter wrote:

JB wrote:

There would be a far greater saving from allowing floods to happen naturally and so replenish the ground water.

What do you mean by that?

Peter.

That vast amounts of water are wasted because of largely superfluous flood control schemes. The nature of flood control schemes is that they are designed to get rid of the water as fast as possible and dump it out to sea. Without such schemes that water would have sat on flood plains or taken much longer to make its way down hill to the nearest river during which time it would seep into the water table. Once in the water table it would form part of a natural buffer against drought by acting as a source for spring and river water or extraction from acquifiers as needed later.

If anyone chooses to live on a flood plain then I have little sympathy with them and if people are being economically forced to live on flood plains the problems to solve are not those that can be addressed with several million tonnes of concrete and a dam.

(edit - just to make it clear. I do have sympathy for people who live in flood zones because that is the only available property or the only available property that they can afford, my objection is to people who freely move to a location and then complain about having to live with the problems that are natural to that area.)

Last edited by Jb on Fri Feb 03, 06 1:32 pm; edited 1 time in total

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91� N

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 1:30 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

Are the two stage flushes normal? I've not seen them in the modern houses I've visited.

Perhaps it's just a very regional thing. From my local experience I had thought they were becoming the norm.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 1:32 pm Post subject:

JB wrote:

Does that only apply to places close to the sea? Milton Keynes has water balancing lakes to cope with excess run off due to the development. Clearly, the water doesn't go to the sea. I don't think that it is used in the water system either,

Peter.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91� N

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 1:37 pm Post subject:

Blue Peter wrote:

JB wrote:

What do they do with the water then? I would have thought that if it was a "water balancing lake" it would release water into the nearest river once the flood risk had passed which would still bypass it's entering the groundwater. The alternative would be to deliberately use it to flood areas or forcibly pump it into a suitable aquifer.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 1:42 pm Post subject:

JB wrote:

Good question. I had presumed that it just stayed there. I'm not sure that they pass water into any river.

Peter.

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 1:42 pm Post subject:

Modern catchement management tries to build in soft flood control such as trees and rough grass to slow run off and encourage infiltration. Flooding of flood plains isn't a great contributor to aquifers, most relying on percolating rainfall on upland areas, where we need the soft catchment management.

The big problem is that none of this can be done without the cooperation of landowners who see no direct beenfit from the action.

Penelope Anderson

Joined: 21 Sep 2005
Posts: 326
Location: london

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 2:42 pm Post subject:
I used to live in Chichester, and was told by a friend there that they never suffered drought because the ROMANS had constructed cisterns in the south downs which held water filtered through the earth. It was a simple business to get it down to the baths etc, and apparently the system still works.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91� N

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 06 3:21 pm Post subject:

Penelope Anderson wrote:

I used to live in Chichester, and was told by a friend there that they never suffered drought because the ROMANS had constructed cisterns in the south downs which held water filtered through the earth. It was a simple business to get it down to the baths etc, and apparently the system still works.

While I suppose it's possible ...

What was the population of Roman chichester compared to modern day Chichester and would such a system really suffice for a modern population? The south downs are predominantly chalk which is porous (hence the reason for farmers up there building artificial pond and water storage for livestock) so without a massive engineering scheme it would hold little water. What is true is that at the base of the south downs you will find a long series of natural spring lines typically where the porous chalk is overlying the wealden clay (that's from memory so don't quote me on that). All of which should mean that without massive aquifer extraction there is little chance of locallised droughts against those scarp slopes as those aquifiers are recharged from water flowing through the chalk above.

In fact just as Behemoth was suggesting in talking about 'soft' flood control schemes for upland regions I beleive there is a whole area just outside Eastbourne which was planted as woodland partly to acheieve exactly that effect, i.e. to slow runoff, reduce upland flooding, increase percolation through the chalk and protect the local water supplies.

Penelope Anderson

Joined: 21 Sep 2005
Posts: 326
Location: london

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 06 11:22 am Post subject:
Apparently the system still works. The Roman were water movers par excellence. A, Trevor Hodges says in his Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply- "how can we withold our respect for a water system that, in the first century AD, supplied the city of Rome with substantially more water than was supplied in 1985 to New York City?" Maybe we should be looking into it?

Lozzie

Joined: 25 May 2005
Posts: 2595

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 06 12:21 pm Post subject:
Oh, God. I am so ignorant. When you said "desalination plants" I thought you meant flora that was specially adapted to tolerate saline conditions and remove salt from soil.

Penelope Anderson

Joined: 21 Sep 2005
Posts: 326
Location: london

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 06 1:17 pm Post subject:
I didn't ,dear Lozzie, but maybe it's a good idea? I've never heard of such plants. But in response to the original sesalination plant question see Tahir's reply about them being energy consumers in a big way. NOT such a good idea - that!

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