Car caught in flood.
Solutions to urban flooding, peatland carbon storage
13 November 2012
This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: a look at potential solutions to urban flooding, and why scientists are so keen to measure carbon dioxide flow through the UK's Norfolk Fens.
During the summer of 2007, following exceptionally high rainfall, the UK experienced devastating floods. They affected over 7000 businesses and 48,000 homes, and cost an estimated £3.2 billion.
Research into the causes of the floods revealed that, rather than soaking through the soil, excessive water built up in urban areas because its flow into aquifers was blocked by impermeable concrete, tarmac and tiles. And with climate change making extreme weather more likely, planners, architects and engineers are being forced to consider how they might manage excess surface water.
Richard Hollingham goes to Keyworth, just outside Nottingham, to talk to Rachel Dearden from NERC's British Geological Survey about a possible solution.
Listen
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A full text transcript is available.
Later, Richard meets Heiko Balzter, Sue Page and Ross Morrison from the University of Leicester who are trying to find out how changes in land use and extreme weather affect carbon emissions from the Norfolk Fens.
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Keywords:
Adaptation & mitigation,
Atmosphere,
Climate system,
Ecology,
Environmental change,
Flooding,
Hydrology,
UK,
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