Water, water, everywhere

To The Daily Telegraph

As a geophysicist, I find it fairly obvious that global warming means the Atlantic will be putting far more water into the atmosphere from now on. As our weather in Britain is mainly driven by Atlantic weather fronts, flooding in these islands is going to become far more common.

The flood defences being built now by the Environment Agency only shift the problem downstream – and were anyway designed for the lesser floods of the last century.

If Brunel were alive today, we’d probably see a far more long-term vision, such as diverting excess water from upstream of the choke points through large underground tunnels connected to the nearest estuary such as the Ribble or Humber.

After all, our tunnelling expertise is second to none after the Chunnel and Crossrail projects. Why not capitalise on this and then export the engineering skills to other countries in a similar position?

John Howard, Birmingham

To The Daily Telegraph

Forty years ago I was employed as a geologist by an aggregate company to develop gravel pits around the UK.

Under no circumstances would planning permission be granted for any permanent structure on a river’s flood plain, where sand and gravel are generally deposited. Any structure that might restrict the flow of water across the flood plain was prohibited; not even a Portakabin would be tolerated.

Nowadays, entire housing estates are built on flood plains. And people wonder why they are regularly flooded out of house and home.

Jeremy Spencer-Cooper, Easebourne, West Sussex