Water Water Everywhere Nor Any Drop To Drink

The Meath Chronicle carried a story this week about work being done to study flooding risks in the Fingal East Meath area reported to the Council. According to the story, "The main objectives of the Fingal East Meath Flood Risk Assessment and Management Study are to identify and map the existing and potential future flood hazard risk areas within the study area and build the strategic information base necessary for making informed decisions in relation to managing flood risk." The study will identify areas at a high risk of flooding as well as existing flood defense measures. "This survey started in August last year and is almost complete, with 27 kilometres of river channel assets and 10km of coastal assets being surveyed."

Details of the study can be found here. For those interested in past known flooding events, the Office of Public Works has a website here that maps known flooding events, though it should be noted that only "recorded" flooding events are included; remote areas that are flood-prone may not be included.

Much of County Louth is at significant risk of flooding with major past flooding events in Dundalk, Drogheda and much of the coastal areas in between, as well in the Boyne valley and elsewhere. Part of the reason is that much of this land is reclaimed, particularly around Dundalk, Blackrock, Ballymascanlon, Lurgangreen and Mooretown. With global warming driving the possibility of such extreme weather events, the potential for episodes such as the nationwide episode in August 2008.

One of the impacts of flooding events is that they often contaminate drinking water with sewage, so alcohol may be the only choice!

In the meantime the Irish Examiner reports, "The practice of building houses and other concrete structures on flood plains is destroying Ireland’s natural flood defences, according to one of the country’s leading experts on coastal engineering." (see town planners blog for full story)." The story continues, "If you look at the rainfall patterns over the last 20 years, you will find that there has been a marked change. We are now getting severe bursts of rain rather than precipitation being spread out,” said Dr Jimmy Murphy, coastal engineering manager with the Hydraulics and Maritime Research Centre, University College Cork (UCC)."

More details of the seminar and studies may be found at the UCC web site.