Uses the same principal as the Romans did with their aqueducts. Pump it up vertically and then let gravity do the job on a shallow slope over a long distance. Round here the rivers are often flowing between levies at above the level of the surrounding fields. When the river is low, they let the water out from the dykes by sluice gates and when it's high they pump it up into the river so it can flow away.
come on Moons....get with the programme....half were for lifting water, the other half were where the mice with clogs on used to live....
aside from the inevitable flooding that takes place on flood plains and reclaimed land below sea level, the big issue is lack of soak away in urban areas....any run-off or direct rainfall onto natural drainage land given over to concrete and tarmac has to go somewhere....there's a big initiative to create sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) which affects both large and small developments...right down to what materials you should use for your driveway. For my money, any long term contingency for sustainable drainage and anti flooding measures shouldn't concentrate on dredging/bunding/diverting, but should consider periodic flooding as a natural (and necessary) phenomenon, and look at it as an opportunity to put back what we have removed...building on flood plains should be restricted to essential infrastructure, while tracts of land should be used to create wetland habitat, in particular reed bed. This could be tied into localised water treatment works. Other measures would include large scale planting of willow (fast growing, water loving, flood tolerant) which could be managed and harvested to provide a sustainable energy source for centuries to come. The long term prospect for the UK is more of the same.....'more of the same thinking' won't cut it in the future..... I read a sci-fi book ages ago where Britain was a series of islands, with luxury marinas for the super rich....
I thought they had them because the place was so flat and they ate a lot of bread. That and they had an aggressive program on Job creation for Windy Miller types...
Same system here in the fens of East anglia, lots of tiddly windmills pumping water, but there aren't many left as they were thrown together and pretty crude with such a simple thing to do. A very attractive idea to harness nature to control nature and just leave it more or less to get on with it. There's a 70 yr old chap I talk to at the bacon butty van who though rather simple and lives with chickens in his house, is a drainage expert of the first order and a really lovely man, but the dimwits who have taken over have no clue what they're doing. When stuff locally floods, the EA generally don't know what to do, but won't pay this man with a lifetime of knowledge for some reason so the locals have to fetch him to go round opening and closing sluice gates which it appears he's the only one who knows about. The same is happening on the canals and rivers with the full time knowledgable staff being laid off by the Canal and Riverside Trust (Yep an underfunded charity is in charge of a lot of this mess) and replaced with well meaning volunteers who are fine until they're need in anger at which point they're clueless. No wonder everywhere's flooding.
Yes - you know your windmill - would it have killed you to have had the sail bits lifted another 6 foot so as not to pose a considerable H&S risk to those simply wanting to enter your mill? Appreciate it's handy to ward of carol singers etc, but think of the frail.
I can't remember the exact details but I know the Dutch have contingency plans whereby they allow floodwater onto the land in an emergency but they have some control over where the water goes. Sacrificial land used to protect more important areas.
That's far too organised for us blundering Brits. We like to spend decades arguing the toss rather than doing anything in the hope that the other side will get into power and have to face the cost. That's why we're such a piecemeal hotch-potch disorganised country. As long as the powers that be have the powers that be, we ants can just suffer the odd kettle of boiling water tipped down our ant holes.
There are so many areas in the uk where if insurance will cover it there's no need to do anything. In a way it's understandable and not a lot different in effect than if money was raised by taxation - the cost is split between everyone. Probably fairer to let insurance deal with it as there are so few tax payers and we can't pay for everything.
The roads over in that flat Lincolnshire are built on banks and its full of dykes, big dykes. Them Dutch know a thing or two.
And of course the premiums for non flooding houses won't go up. The Govt has already earmarked money to compensate the insurance companies to ensure that everyone can insure their house, even if it floods every two years. The Govt money comes from...us. We might be little ants who don't matter very much in the grand scheme of things but it's us little ants who eventually pick up the tab.
