Global warming means more severe flooding
© Express Newspapers, 2000
September 11, 2000
BY JOHN INGHAM
ENVIRONMENT EDITOR GLOBAL warming is putting property worth £214billion at risk by turning Britain into a flood hotspot, Government advisers warned yesterday.
They said the number of floods has doubled in the past century as rising temperatures increase the frequency and severity of sudden downpours.
In the next 100 years severe floods could occur 10 times more often than today, they predict. The advisers warned: "Today's extreme floods could become tomorrow's norm."
Proof of the deluges hitting the country are the 30 floods in the past 30 months across England and Wales.
These included rivers bursting their banks in Durham and Yorkshire in June, ruining 1,000 homes at an insurance cost of £12million.
The experts said that just because you have never been flooded before does not mean you will escape for ever. Five million people are classed as being at risk across the country.
The warning was delivered by the Government's green watchdog, the Environment Agency, at the launch of its new flood warnings.
It is abandoning its old-style yellow, amber and red coded warnings because nobody understood them. Instead it is bringing in a system of codes based on similar ones in America and Australia.
They start at Flood Watch when there is a risk of flooding, rising to Flood Warning and on to Severe Flood Warning followed by All Clear.
The launch, backed by TV gardener Charlie Dimmock who specialises in water features, came as governments prepare for November's talks on fighting global warming. Climate change, which is expected to increase the world's temperature by 3.5C in 100 years, is thought to be caused by burning fossil fuels. These release gases like carbon dioxide which trap the sun's heat.
Green group Friends of the Earth yesterday issued a report, Gathering Storm, which collated evidence of the changes under way. These include the thinning of Arctic Sea ice by nearly 40 per cent in less than 30 years and six of the warmest years ever being recorded during the 1990s.
In addition, the world has been rocked by a spate of devastating storms and floods, from Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998 to Mozambique earlier this year, and huge forest fires across America and Europe in the face of scorching temperatures this summer.
Environment Agency chairman Sir John Harman said that the devastating impacts of climate change are already to be seen in this country.
He added: "Flood risk is now a fact of daily life in England and Wales. Reports of flooding are on average nearly twice as frequent as they were 100 years ago.
"More worryingly, with climate change, we could see a tenfold increase in flood risk over the next century.
"A typical flood that might now happen once in 100 years could occur every 10 or 20 years in future. Today's extreme floods could become tomorrow's norm."
He added: "The emotional cost to victims of floods is immeasurable. How can one put a price on the loss of wedding albums, family photos and the effort and care that goes into making a home? It only take a few moments for that to be destroyed by a flood". The agency is helping people prepare for floods with a TV and radio campaign: "Flooding. You can't prevent it. You can prepare for it."