Facebook drivel about Oak trees and flooding

[SteveA]

My MSc was in water resources. I understand that forests mitigate flooding (as opposed to farming) as forest soils hold more water. Forest soils hold more water as there are no animals/ tractors continually compacting the soil. Forest soils also have a lot more "spongy" organic matter that holds the water.

 

A couple of hundred millimetre of decayed spruce needles holds a fair amount of rain...

 

That makes sense to me.

The areas of meadow where we have tended to drive over more regularly are more compacted and seem to be wetter, the grass in those areas isnt growing as well either.

 

All our meadows have felt soft underfoot for the entire year.... very different to the previous two years. As a result of a lack of proper warm sun our hay crop never came good.

And because we had to cut and bale the grass on non-firm ground it must have resulted in even more soil compaction.

 

Pretty sure we'll be mole ploughing next year & doing further ditch maintenance works; if it ever stops bleedin' raining!

cheers, steve

[aitch]

A good healthy moor will soaks up the rainwater and release it slowly which helps alleviate flooding. Trouble is it's already soaked up a lot of rain before the heavy downpours.

[SteveA]

A good healthy moor will soaks up the rainwater and release it slowly which helps alleviate flooding. Trouble is it's already soaked up a lot of rain before the heavy downpours.

 

Spot on....

The soft rush loves it too!

[wills-mill]

My MSc was in water resources. I understand that forests mitigate flooding (as opposed to farming) as forest soils hold more water. Forest soils hold more water as there are no animals/ tractors continually compacting the soil. Forest soils also have a lot more "spongy" organic matter that holds the water.

 

A couple of hundred millimetre of decayed spruce needles holds a fair amount of rain...

 

That's absolutely true. Unfortunately that's not the point raised by the daft image.

The rate that water drops off the Pennines and other uplands is pretty insane. I had a poke around the Environment Agency website maps, you can see the spikes in river flow at the measurement stations, and after these rains the levels go way up, then plummet back to normal in the upland sections of the rivers. Further downstream (and hours later) the water arrives unstoppably but behaves in a much lazier fashion.

 

Environment Agency - River Levels: Swale, Ure, Nidd and Upper Ouse

 

At the moment Harrogate has been normal for 48hrs, but York is only just starting to tail off.

[Jonas]

Original posting aside, and agreeing that FB has its place, usually to keep all the stupid people arguing with each other, while the rest of us live in relative peace and harmony......there are a lot of good points raised in this thread.

Trees of course have there place but until we drastically rethink our approach to all our wild areas we will always see floods like this, and even then we may still see it.

Short term politics and entrenched farming/ estate views will of course mop up EU funding and retain the status quo, besides its only the north.....