De Jar Vu

[floydraser]

How about a reduction in tolls and insurance for the fitting of a "Black Box" to a boat?

Sorry, I know it's not my place to make suggestions, I've only been here 5 years.

[Vaughan]

7 hours ago, dnks34 said:

Looking at that submerged quay heading on the right its not beyond possibility that the inexperienced could run in to it.

That is a very real danger, especially to hire boats who don't know the river.

These sort of conditions will normally mean the closing of other rivers, such as the Thames, where they put up a red board at the locks and all navigation stops.

[Vaughan]

9 hours ago, MY littleboat said:

Leaving aside the wash for a moment, that flooding at Surlingham would have been quite commonplace in the "old days" on the Yare, where the sheds at Hearts in Thorpe used to flood every full moon in winter, along with the Brundall yards as well.  You just got your waders on and got on with it!

Right now though, this is very different and I can't really recall flooding over such a wide area that has gone on for so long.  It started on a neap tide and this is now the second spring tide to come up, with the original flooding still there.  As Griff says this morning on his thread, something must be wrong.  Griff feels it is lack of proper dredging on the lower Bure and I think the current very shallow depth of the Yare nowadays does not help either.  I also blame the lack of deliberate washlands in the meadows of the lower reaches, caused by too many new flood banks.

The Broads used to be able to cope well with flooding in the past, until all the "experts" started buggering about with it!

[ChrisB]

According to NASA, Global sea levels have risen 6 to 8 inches or half the rise for the last 100 years since 1993.

The Norwester of Friday night also saw a surge necessitating the "Gap" gate closures right along the coast.

It is not just The Broads, places like Mudeford, Christchurch and Chichester Harbour are also suffering.

I don't think what it was like 60 or 70 years ago has relevence anymore.

[grendel]

1 hour ago, ChrisB said:

I don't think what it was like 60 or 70 years ago has relevence anymore.

70 years ago would be 1953, when the floods were a lot worse than currently, and 41 years before that 1912,

when predicting water levels when building you plan for 100 year high levels ie levels reached once every 100 years on average. but then there are still 1000 year levels which will get you.

[grendel]

1 hour ago, ChrisB said:

According to NASA, Global sea levels have risen 6 to 8 inches or half the rise for the last 100 years since 1993.

how much of that rise can be attributed to better measuring techniques though?

[Vaughan]

22 minutes ago, grendel said:

1 hour ago, ChrisB said:

I don't think what it was like 60 or 70 years ago has relevence anymore.

70 years ago would be 1953, when the floods were a lot worse than currently, and 41 years before that 1912,

 

We should remember that 1953 was caused by a failure of the sea wall on the north Norfolk coast.  Many local people in 1953 believed that if the wall had not breached, the Broads themselves would not have flooded any more than usual.

I think 60 years or more ago does have relevance, as this flooding was caused mainly by rainfall, which could not get away owing to the present state of maintenance of the rivers system and the closing off of the washlands by excessive use of new flood banks.  Even 8 inches of sea level would have little or no effect on that.

Also, imagine all that volume of water that used to be contained by the Yare when it was dredged to 12ft at low water, right across its width all the way to Norwich.  I know very well how shallow it is now, by the number of places I have run aground during the Yare Navigation Race, in a yacht drawing only 4' 6".  This must surely make an enormous difference to the flow of a surge tide and is possibly why more water now seems to be going up the Bure.

Sorry for a pun on the NASA analogy, but "it's not rocket science"!        

[rightsaidfred]

I am all in favour of a proper dredging programme and maintaining the flood plains, having said that no amount of dredging or anything else will stop the North Sea Surges and tidal locking that we have been suffering from, our biggest mistake in all things is in us as a race thinking we know better than and that we can control nature and natural events, while this period of sustained high water is exceptional largely due to the prolonged spells of low pressure etc it is far from a new phenomenon, I can recall areas of North and East London flooding regularly before the flood relief channels were built back in the 1950/60s    .  

Fred

[Bernard]

[Vaughan]

Members may wonder why I seem to keep banging on about washlands?

The Broads area - the Great Estuary, if you like   - was originally drained and re-claimed by Dutch engineers several hundred years ago, hence the Dutch type wind pumps which still dot the landscape.  They knew what they were doing and created large areas of grazing meadow to be used as washlands, just as they still do in the Low Countries today.  The Broads area remained pretty much unchanged from this, right up to the 1950's.

Now here is another proven fact.  North Sea surge tides (like many things in life) come in pairs.  One surge will always be followed by a second, on the next high tide. The washlands all over the lower Bure and Waveney areas, as laid out by the Dutch, were designed with enough volume to contain both surges and prevent them going further up-river.

But that was until the farmers reckoned they weren't making enough profit out of cattle, so they lobbied parliament to have the river banks built up high to protect the meadows.  They could then "deep dyke" drain, to lower the water table in the fields and grow arable crops.  So all those washlands became hundreds, even thousands of acres of oilseed rape. This is what they would have done to the Halvergate Marshes if my friend Andrew Lees of Friends of the Earth had not managed to stop them.  Meantime, the surge floodwater has now got nowhere else to go except up-river, where it floods  places such as Norwich, Beccles and Wroxham.

The experts call this progress, perhaps.  I think Rightsaidfred and I would call it messing about with nature.

 

[MY littleboat]

19 hours ago, ExSurveyor said:

Completely stupid action. No doubt a few minutes later my boat was bouncing against the near overtopping quay heading.

 

It would have been interesting if you had been onboard, personally I always take care coming past Brundall Gardens as even on a normal tide, the boats get moved quite significantly.

[MY littleboat]

11 hours ago, Vaughan said:

Leaving aside the wash for a moment, that flooding at Surlingham would have been quite commonplace in the "old days" on the Yare, where the sheds at Hearts in Thorpe used to flood every full moon in winter, along with the Brundall yards as well.  You just got your waders on and got on with it!

Right now though, this is very different and I can't really recall flooding over such a wide area that has gone on for so long.  It started on a neap tide and this is now the second spring tide to come up, with the original flooding still there.  As Griff says this morning on his thread, something must be wrong.  Griff feels it is lack of proper dredging on the lower Bure and I think the current very shallow depth of the Yare nowadays does not help either.  I also blame the lack of deliberate washlands in the meadows of the lower reaches, caused by too many new flood banks.

The Broads used to be able to cope well with flooding in the past, until all the "experts" started buggering about with it!

I think also, there is a very large question about residential runoff - I haven't seen postwick shut off once this year, it is a constant flow, and I feel incredibly sorry for those mooring nearby as the stench is often horrendous. Thousands of new properties with nil additional reprossessing.... overwhelmed...

Failure to dredge has also got to have something to do with it - yes I remember those days when there was flooding, but it was gone as the tide dropped - and we cant even blame 'trapped tides' or wind in the wrong direction when we have had several concurrent days without wind... something is wrong and it doesn't quite compute!

 

This is the footage I captured yesterday

 

 

[marshman]

Of course the "overflow" as you call it at Postwick, is always discharging water - by and large what is in our sewers is just fresh water coming out of our taps, showers, washing machines etc etc, and on days like today, rainwater as well. It doesn't discharge into vast soakaways!!!

If you think the smell at Postwick is bad these days ask Vaughan what it was like in the 50's just around Postwick bend where the whole lot came out lock stock and barrel, so to speak!!!!

 

[chrisdobson45]

21 hours ago, MY littleboat said:

I think also, there is a very large question about residential runoff - I haven't seen postwick shut off once this year, it is a constant flow, and I feel incredibly sorry for those mooring nearby as the stench is often horrendous. Thousands of new properties with nil additional reprossessing.... overwhelmed...

Failure to dredge has also got to have something to do with it - yes I remember those days when there was flooding, but it was gone as the tide dropped - and we cant even blame 'trapped tides' or wind in the wrong direction when we have had several concurrent days without wind... something is wrong and it doesn't quite compute!

 

This is the footage I captured yesterday

 

 

Superb video, there's Mystic Lady at 2mins 44 secs...

[grendel]

really it makes you think that there should be two drainage systems, - one for raw sewerage and one for normal black water, ie from the sinks and baths and street culverts, that needs less intensive processing, and the priority should be given to always treating the raw sewerage waste rather than letting it bypass the processors.

[floydraser]

Is it just me or does anyone else see those drone shots and wish they had a joystick to control it? I always want to see the bit to the left or right! 

Nice video though. 

[Vaughan]

1 hour ago, marshman said:

If you think the smell at Postwick is bad these days ask Vaughan what it was like in the 50's just around Postwick bend where the whole lot came out lock stock and barrel, so to speak!!!!

My God yes, I remember it!!

I was a member of the Norwich Amateur Rowing Club at Whitlingham, which has not existed for a long time since the clubhouse burned down - for the second time!

In those days, the outfall actually produced huge amounts of foam, which floated down the river rather like icebergs.  One day I was out on the river in a single scull and rowed straight into one of these before I noticed it.  The whole world around me disappeared into a fog of cloying foam!

All the same, Dom above says that the run-off is now flowing all the time.  In "my day" it only flowed out on a falling tide . If it is now flowing out all the time, that sounds a bit serious.

[MargeandParge]

On 25/11/2023 at 22:29, floydraser said:

How about a reduction in tolls and insurance for the fitting of a "Black Box" to a boat?

Sorry, I know it's not my place to make suggestions, I've only been here 5 years.

I think that the ruler of the Blessed Authority would prefer a limpet mine as it would be another vessel off the water and make his job easier.

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge