Thoughts and floods

Whilst those directly affected by flooding must have more pressing concerns on their mind, and my heart goes out to them, I wonder if those in charge of town planning and environmental affairs should ponder the cause - and potential solutions - seriously.

Let's put aside for a second the wider (almost certain) cause of extreme weather events - climatic change, thanks to us. Let's keep the scope to flooding.

We fell the woodlands and clear the vegetation lining the watercourses, both near the source and further downstream. Trees will have a huge effect - water take up, hence reducing ground saturation; rooting that improves water percolating to the soils; and simply by being physical barriers slowing water, through their position but also dropping debris into rivers.

We all want bigger, detached houses, with that all important hard-standing for our cars. Meanwhile I see a worrying increase in paved, sterile gardens, sometimes even using artificial turf (because keeping lawns, or better still meadows, is such hard work when there's facebook to check). All of this further covers the amount of ground available to soak up water, let it enter the ground and not run off.

We think we no longer have the space to allow rivers to meander, find their own course and maybe dam up slightly every so often. We 'need' that land for farming. We, you and I, want to consume food as cheap as possible, pushing that intensive agriculture relying on artificial inputs, clearing hedges and riparian vegetation, and absolutely not having space for little bits of seasonal flooding. So we channel the rivers, quickening the flow and giving much less opportunity for percolation.

So water speeds up, doesn't have a chance to dissipate, reaches our concrete impermeable towns, and the inevitable happens. And politicians wring their hands from London, pretend that the answer is more walls, more sandbags, more barriers. More built solutions to a problem with a simple natural solution, money spent in the wrong places.

Why aren't we happy with smaller houses, greener urban landscapes, vegetation lined rivers? Who needs detached houses in a matrix of concrete and paving? Why won't we pay that bit more for food and allow farmers to leave riparian vegetation where it is. Let the rivers find their own courses, don't fight it. Reforest along the rivers, especially before they reach towns.

Where are our priorities?! We want new phones, boxing day sales, social media presence and status, and go to all manner of lengths to achieve them. But ask the people mopping out their homes and shops in the north if any of that matters to them right now. Or if we showed that riverside woods helped, would people accept less paving, less house space, and more natural space?

Yet another ecosystem service we've lost through greed and a sense of mastery. How many others will there be?

A wild place

Another jaunt into Heath Bank Woods tonight, just as an antidote to three days straight in the office. I was studying recently about spiritual attachments to trees and forests, and how forests - even if not pristine - still represent nature, wilderness, and simplicity in contrast to our frantic and artificial modern lifestyles.

A few oak trees were too tempting not to climb, the first proper tree climbing this year. I climb trees way more now than I ever did when I was younger. There were no ropes, so climbing was both more liberated and more constrained at the same time. Sitting up in the top of the trees the wind could be felt more keenly, and it was easy to become half-lulled by the swaying.

Down near the stream is a notable old oak, hollowing out at the base. Last year I found this just a week or two too late - there were prolific chicken-of-the-woods fruiting in it, but just a bit too past it. In the winter they had turned white and rubbery, and for now only white patches of mycelia remained visible. There has, in the not-too-distant-past, been a fire in the base, and the inner wood is charred and blackened. You could stand in it, a bit of a squeeze and putting your head up into the dark, unopened upper part of the cavity, but you can still do it. The wood around the hollow is slowly buckling under the weight of the tree, but I reckon it still has plenty of years left. I drew my friend an old pirate-style map so he could find the tree and hopefully a bountiful fungus crop too.

Following a small track past the tree takes you down to the stream, and another oak only metres away has a lower bough comfortable enough to perch on. The wild garlic was in flower prolifically, and bluebells, ferns and other flora were carpeting the floor. The trickle of the stream was the only sound. I know that the wood is hardly 'untouched' - there are public footpaths, albeit rough ones, as well as occasional dog walkers and evidence of camping. Even the big hollowing oak has been touched - fire charring and graffiti on the decaying wood. But even so, it is nice to feel like you're in "the wilds". I suppose it's the so-called shifting baseline of what is considered 'natural' to each generation, as the world becomes more and more altered. 

It doesn't matter what analysis of historic land use and present influence you apply though. It's interesting to look for features of old influence, and to consider why some features are the way they are. But on the other hand my phone had run out of battery and I'd left my watch at home, so I sat there without any knowledge of how much time was spent there, just listening to the running water, feeling the moss on the tree, pondering and tuning out. It might not have been true wilderness, but it still felt natural.