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Après le deluge: the UK winter storms of 2013–14

2014; Wiley; Volume: 180; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/geoj.12126

1475-4959

Klaus Dodds,

Geographic Information Systems Studies

The sheer scale of the winter storms, which affected parts of the UK in the winter months of 2013–14, hit me when I was driving along the A30 Egham bypass. While I had noticed localised flooding and some road closures in the area close to my university in Surrey, the Runnymede area of the River Thames was no longer slightly submerged by floodwater. It was entirely covered to the extent that you could no longer identify familiar points of reference such as hedgerows, rights of way signage and field patterns. An impromptu and unwelcomed ‘Lake Runnymede’ filled that space and threatened further damage to roads and homes close by. Residents at the local hotel, which I think remained open during the flooding, had to park their cars on the verges of the roundabout close to the M25. All of that might seem comparatively trivial to the experiences of communities and infrastructure scattered around Wales and England, which were battered and bruised by those winter storms. Scotland experienced the wettest December on record in 2013 (Met Office 2014). While much of the media attention towards the storm and associated flooding intensified in December, January and February 2014, the unusual weather patterns started in late October 2013 when five people were reported as storm-related fatalities. By the end of this stormy period, 17 people perished and millions of pounds were lost due to the damage inflicted on residential, industrial and farming property and infrastructure, including roads, sea walls, and bridges (Hartwell-Naguib and Roberts 2014). Pollution and contamination of water supplies was a persistent worry as was the safety of livestock and other animals in rural areas. The financial company Deloitte estimated that the final cost of the flooding might be around £1 billion (Osborne 2014). Compared with the 1953 storms and associated flooding (when over 300 died and 40 000 were left homeless), it was less damaging to lives and property. Small comfort to those directly affected in 2013–14 perhaps but a more hopeful sign that flood defence structures and strategies acted as an emollient. For the last five years, the Geographical Journal has been eager to explore and indeed promote the role that geography and geographers play in public and policy debates. In the aftermath of the flooding of 2013–14, there was considerable interest in the immediate impact and long-term consequences for the UK. Some reports estimated that over 5 million properties were at risk of flooding in England alone and that flood-related damage would end up costing the UK billions of pounds in the coming decades, as flood defence spending increases (Bennett 2014). In our opening paper, Colin Thorne (2014) reminds us of the physical, social, economic and political geographies associated with the winter storms of 2013–14. It was, in weather terms, an extreme event as areas of low pressure moved across the UK. Heavy rain and high winds followed, fuelled by a strong North Atlantic jet stream were blamed but other factors such as unusual weather events in the Pacific Ocean were also added to the explanatory mix. It is clearly a complex business making sense of such extreme events (Huntingford et al. 2014). December 2013 was, for many British citizens, a stormy month. In January 2014, the rainfall recorded in southern England broke existing records. Persistent flooding in the Somerset Levels, and waves of flooding affecting southern English communities captured media and political attention. The Environment Agency (EA) was singled out for particular criticism, as being ill prepared, inattentive and sclerotic in its response to the flooding disaster. One area it did earn some praise from, however, was the use of twitter alerts, including flood risk mapping, as social media was put to work in warning communities about impending events. As the criticism mounted regarding preparedness and response, and became increasingly personalised with the head of the EA being singled out in particular, politicians of all major political parties travelled to flood-affected areas. Flood management became a political football. In their commentary, Elizabeth Stephens and Hannah Cloke (2014) take stock and consider the role of national-level flood forecasting capabilities and the role of national and local government as well as emergency response communities. They offer, despite the fierce criticism at the time of the EA leadership and the Environment and Communities and Local Government Ministers, a more hopeful assessment in terms of forecasting and preparedness even if there remain technical and communication-based challenges regarding the use and circulation of probabilistic flood forecasting within responsible organisations and beyond. With all this talk, and at times consternation, about the fate of flood plains connected to English and Welsh rivers, such as the Severn and Thames, it was propitious that John Lewin (2014) submitted a paper to the journal about ‘the English flood plain’. While I have to confess I was a little surprised to know that England had just one flood plain, the reflections that followed provide a tour d'horizon of the flood plain and its immense variability in terms of physical and human geographies. The title of the paper turns out to be a thoughtful provocation. If we are to make further progress with flood mitigation, it is essential that the floodplain and its material qualities are better understood, as well as the mobility of sediment and the like. As scholars of mobilities might frame it, there are fluvial moorings, mobilities and immobilities to be better comprehended (Hannam et al. 2006). Some things move, some things do not move, and some things block, facilitate, slow and accelerate the flow of water and objects, including but not exclusively sediment. Severe floods, as the outcry over the fate of the Somerset Levels demonstrated in the winter of 2014, provoke questions and at times visceral reactions to how societies and their governmental agencies plan, react and respond in the longer term to flooding. Prince Charles told Somerset residents in February 2014 that it was a ‘tragedy’, while local political figures made evocative appeals to the Prime Minister David Cameron for emergency assistance. The armed forces, in partnership with local volunteers and the emergency services, were put to work deploying sandbags and mobilising evacuations. In their commentary, Lindsey Mcewen, Owain Jones and Iain Robertson (2014) provide a timely reflection on how the social sciences and the arts and humanities can contribute to these debates alongside the physical and environmental sciences. Just as the Oxford geographer Michael Williams (see below) reflected on centuries old knowledge and experience about the management of the Somerset Levels, so Mcewen, Jones and Robertson show how the memories of those affected by flooding can be a starting point for how science, policy and public understanding of risk and extreme weather interconnect with one another. In the case of the Levels, impassioned debate surrounding the flooding ensued as some argued that a failure to dredge vital drainage channels was to blame while others contended that rural communities were ‘sacrificed’ in order to save towns and cities in the Levels such as Taunton (Figure 1). The ‘flood memories’ and ‘flood knowledges’ of those communities deserve further investigation as does the manner in which flood expertise is constructed, organised and exploited within public and politicalenvironments, especially in the aftermath when communities are exulted to display ‘resilience’. The Somerset Levels and Areas Affected by Flooding in January 2014 There is clearly a wider debate to be had here in terms of how those ‘flood memories’ and ‘flood knowledges’ are put to work in various socio-spatial contexts. As feminist geographers would rightly remind us, flooding along with other disasters is a deeply embodied experience; it can be a matter of life and death. It can also be an opportunity for state-based authorities to militarise and securitise communities and environments (Hyndman 2008). And as the experiences of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 demonstrated, there are geographies of life, death and mobility and immobility with associated consequences for livelihoods and property. Some people get to ‘bounce back’ more strongly than others, and some are simply moved on or prevented from returning to their homes (Graham 2006). Finally, it seemed appropriate given the high level of attention given to some geographical areas in southern England to return to the classic work of the late environmental geographer Michael Williams and his scholarship on the state of the Somerset Levels. While, as geographers, we might reflect on why some communities and places get accorded more media/public attention than others in the midst of disasters, the watery fate of the Somerset Levels enjoyed a high level of public exposure. Hugh Clout takes us on a reflective journey, and a highly skilful meandering one might say through the aperçus of Williams, including the use of water control, the role of farmers as risk managers and the balance between conservation and exploitation. This themed section on the UK winter storms and flooding of 2013–14 is not exhaustive. It should be considered an entrée into the topic. There are other areas to consider that geographers can and should have a view on; namely the role of flood insurance, the development and implementation of flood risk management, the imagination of extreme events and the politics of resilience, and finally, the mediation and militarisation of flooding. Looking back, one should take some comfort from the fact that fewer people died compared with the 1953 floods and the damage to property was less severe than in the case of the 2007 floods, but flooding is not likely to disappear from the UK political agenda any time soon (Greenwood 2014). While this themed section considered the UK and its recent experiences of flooding, I hope it will also inspire wider geographical reflection about how flooding gets engineered, embodied, experienced and understood elsewhere. In 2013 alone, there were major floods in Afghanistan, Canada, China, Central Europe, India and the United States. We need to [continue] talk about flooding. I am immensely grateful to the authors and referees for their willingness to work, at times, to a very tight timetable. Jenny Kynaston at Royal Holloway University of London kindly drew Figure 1. For bringing this themed section into production, I thank Fiona Nash and the Wiley team in Singapore. As it will be appearing in my last issue as editor, this acknowledgement is only a drop in the ocean in terms of my appreciation for the support I have received in the last five years.