Tag: October

Irregular beats

Speckle tight canvas cover

Rain’s rhythm persists

.

n.b. Now there is plenty of rain. October in Somerset has been remarkably wet. The damp air has slowed the arrival of autumn colours, although grass is turning yellow where the roots have become saturated.

This afternoon I saw a washed out, pale pink earth worm writhing on the sodden lawn, after it had struggled to the surface in the middle of another intense period of the seemingly unceasing rain. The local blackbirds are happy for such gifts.

The water table will benefit and the streams will refill. However, in the local village, many house owners have replaced grass with hard-surfacing for car parking. This ground work increases surface run-off that puts pressure on the drainage system, designed before car ownership had reached current levels. Combined with erratic rain patterns that produce intense, or prolonged periods of precipitation, risks of flash flooding and water damage increase as a result of further moulding the land for the convenience of motorised transport.

Three years ago The Guardian published the following article, but the message does not seem to have got through.

Why concrete + rain = flash floods

Increasing pressure on local government finances, due to national government’s “Austerity” measures, has led to more street parking restrictions in residential areas. Residents then replace front gardens with personal car parking; this restricts street parking capacity because these car drivers need to access these spaces directly across the pavements, which encourages more property owners to convert gardens to car spaces. Then when it rains, flood risk rises as there is less natural soak-away for rainwater to filter through.

In the three years since this article there is little evidence of any reduction in the process of concreting over gardens, nor any inkling of acneed to reverse this process.

CLP 11/0/2019