Still rising

Worse than dreich.  After a week of frquent showers it rained for 36 hours continuously.  It has been worse but there is more rain forecast.  No walk for me today.

I remember the floods of 2008 but, after looking at the graph, I'm very glad to have missed 1960.  It all looks very interesting from a certain distance but get a little closer and the power of the water rushing past is quite frightening.

Floods in Paris

Rowing down the road

One hundred years and one month ago saw record floods in Paris.  Between 20 and 28 January 1910, the levels of water measured at the Austerlitz Bridge were at record levels, reaching almost 8 metres (over 26 feet) above normal.  Previously there had been floods in 1658 and 1740, both measured at the Tournelle Bridge which was damaged in 1910.

It was caused by a combination of factors:

• an exceptionally wet final quarter of 1909 (two minor floods had already been recorded),
• saturated land, then frozen
• simultaneous flooding of the Seine tributaries.

Walkways 

It wasn't merely a case of 20,000 houses and buildings being flooded, but normal activities were paralysed, electricity and gas supplies were cut, transport severely disrupted, rubbish had to be dumped into the river.

Shovelling up the rubbish

They estimate the damage would be 1.6 billion Euros in modern terms.  It wasn't until 16 March that the river receded to its normal levels.

This could very easily happen again because the whole region around Paris is at the heart of the heart of three major river confluences - Seine/Yonne, Seine/Marne and Seine/Oise.  Since the 6th century there have been 60 major floods.  Although there have been none in the last 50 years, apart from 1982, there were 10 between 1910 and 1960.  By the law of averages, one is due.

The postcard images are from the Postaletrice Flickr account where there are many more.

Did we need rain?

 

  

 

We have enough now, thank you.

Paddling pines

This is a shot I took two days ago after several days of heavy rain, on the same river but further upstream than my ususal haunt. The flooding wasn't too bad and, in fact, if you look at the level on the tree at the front, you can see it had gone down already.  But there is a large yellow sign - I carefully avoided getting it into the shot - which warns people not to hang around in the area because the level can rise suddenly and dramatically.  There is a large hydroelectric dam nearby and if they decide to let more water through, the valley can rapidly become flooded.

PhotoHunt: aftermath

The aftermath of a flood in spring 2008.

Last spring the river flooded but the aftermath remains. Even by June signs were still there with debris which had been caught in the overhead cable still in place.

In October a tree was still stuck on the weir where it had come to rest after floating downstream.

And yesterday, almost nine months later, the aftermath of two events - the tree, which had fallen gradually into the river after the flood loosened the bank, now showing the aftermath of the recent snow storm too.

Technorati tags: PhotoHunt

Et voilà

The house across the river, completely surrounded by water.

The field directly across the river from our house.

The same view last July. I was trying to catch the reflections at the time but it does show the difference very well.

Outlook: unsettled

I started this post after taking these photos of ominous looking clouds three days ago.

It has been raining almost non-stop ever since. The river is normally very placid but this morning I noticed it becoming very turbulent at the weir. It had already broken its banks at the lowest part.

By earlier this evening the water had risen so much the weir was almost unnoticeable. And just look at the colour of the water.

Last July roughly the same view looked like this:

It's still raining.

Season's Greetings

I am unlikely to be around too much over the next week or so. My sister is soon to arrive from Canada to look after our mother and allow me to have a short break in France. We are concerned that the house shouldn't be empty continuously for too long.

Two years ago I think it was, we had this very Christmassy scene which I do hope won't be repeated, pretty though it looks. Floods were followed by a heavy snowfall.

I hope you all have your wishes come true, and have a lovely and peaceful holiday.

Problems with water again

On the first day of this month I posted about the fact that some places have too little while others have to much.

In the slightly less than three weeks since, there have been numerous instances.

• Families stranded after river floods in western Kenya
• NEPAL: Flood victims face disease, food shortages
• BANGLADESH: Government says flood conditions stabilising
• COTE D'IVOIRE: Floods wipe out water source for hundreds of people
• SUDAN: One million people may be affected by floods
• LIBERIA: Sea destroys homes in coastal communities

And in Mauritania, where they had been praying for rain, it started on 7 August and now we hear that the subsequent flooding has produced health and sanitation problems.

In spite of the floods in western Kenya, there are also worries about the falling levels of rivers, according to IRIN. Experts believe that the cause of it is deforestation which allows the soil to be eroded so that it can no longer hold rainwater which would seep into the rivers. Instead it just evaporates, or causes flash floods. The good news is that careful management, planting 4 kilometres of trees and monitoring usage, has started to have an effect and river levels are rising again.

There are similar concerns about deforestation in Burkina Faso where a campaign to replant started on 4 August. So far 3,500 trees have been planted. The report is in French.

Back to Kenya again, to listen to a doctor in Denver, Dr Pius Kamau, who grew up in Kenya. He gives an account of how his family's small coffee plantation has dried up and failed. Interesting the contrast he draws between Starbucks springing up on every corner while his mother couldn't make ends meet on her farm producing coffee beans. And he comes full circle when he wonders how much African wildlife or how many African tribesmen are killed by his lifestyle now.

Til taught by pain, men really know not what good water is worth

Water has featured greatly in the news recently. Too much of it in some places: UK, Pakistan, China, Nepal, Sudan, but not enough in others: Lesotho, Swaziland, Djibouti, and today we hear that the president of Mauritania has asked for national prayers to ensure the rainy season starts soon and provides enough rain.

Countries that have neither too much nor too little have other problems with it.

In Kenya, there is a worry that the Anopheles mosquito, which spreads malaria, will become adapted to living in polluted water and invade previously relatively malaria-free areas like Nairobi. Malaria is now the most common disease in Kibera, one of Nairobi’s slums.

Again in Nairobi, in another slum, there have been demonstrations protesting over cuts in the water supply. There had been cuts for five days in an effort to stop illegal connections to the mains.

In Jordan hundreds of people have been taken to hospital with severe diarrhoea caused by a parasite in the water supply. The parasite, Cryptosporidium, is resistant to traditional water treatment.

In Senegal a water channel running through the centre of Dakar, the capital, has become an open sewer. People, not realising it was intended as a recreation area nor understanding the implications of polluting the water, have dumped rubbish in it, so much so that the water has become stagnant in places allowing mosquitoes to breed.

It’s not surprising then that organisations such as WaterAid exist, whose vision is of a world where everyone has access to safe water and sanitation.

When you read about people being delighted that they can go three times a day to collect clean water from a hand pump, you realise we sometimes need to take a moment to understand how much most of us take safe water for granted, whereas for large parts of the world it is a luxury.

PhotoHunter: Water

February 2006

It started slowly:



But then we had more water than we could deal with:

Weeping willows

Remember this just a few days ago? We went away for a short break and this is what we found when we returned.



It is almost the same angle but I would have had to wade out to be in precisely the same spot. As it was, my toes were in the water. You can just about see the boat, now submerged. Our tranquil river has turned into a torrent, with more rain forecast.