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thanks for the link dudeofdoom, good article on the gota fria.
Feel a bit sorry for the authorities that are being criticised for not predicting these flash floods, the ground is completely sodden now and the rain hits with such ferocity that it has nowhere to go except into the barrancos that have become parking places for those seemingly incapable of walking 3 metres to their houses or the shop. Given the events of what is nearly 2 weeks now, surely the sensible thing to ro would be to leave cars on higher ground away from these flooding pinch points. In other news, the Valencia residents who have lost cars last week have been promised a foc replacement by the government rather than relying on insurance companies, irrespective of the level of cover they had, small but significant but no recompense for the loss of life.
Facebook has taken to feeding me American monster truck/hill climbing videos recently.
I bet Facebook itself uses far more energy than monster truck racing.
Private jets make up 10% of all UK departures according to the below, so a bit more than your 0.0000001%!
Globally private flights is 10%, so about 4million. which is pretty much small potatoes against the 40 million other flights.
This video explains in detail just how badly the authorities dealt with the problem.
I'm suprised the death toll is as low as 200 given the level of destruction and how quickly it unfolded.
Death toll is low now, but they reported that a couple of thousand are still missing. Whether those missing fled to family, or are buried under the wrecks only time will tell. But the figure is likely to climb as time goes on.
Globally private flights is 10%, so about 4million. which is pretty much small potatoes against the 40 million other flights.
Ten percent is ten percent, it's not insignificant. If we're serious about reducing emissions from aviation, I think we should start by cutting those - the most unnecessary of all flights - and if it still needs to be reduced further we should then move onto unnecessary 'business' flights, then first and business class seats.
The biggest challenge is catchment related. Debris in the storm drains is usually transient, the water will transport that material to the closest area of deposition. Although, badly constructed bridges can become pinch points. Forget rivers being about water, they are sediment transport mechanisms, most sediment you see will be moved each time the river hits bank full. A project I worked on, saw a 1m^3 chunk of slate moved 45m downstream due to a flash flood. Water is powerful stuff.
During Storm Desmond, the River Lune was clocked at 1,300cumecs at Caton. That is 1,300 cubic metres per second, it would fill an Olympic swimming pool ever 2seconds, with change. I haven’t seen any figures for Valencia, but there’s little you can do to mitigate for that volume of water. After Desmond, some people in Kendal were demanding the reviver was dredged to accommodate all the flows. We calculated it would have taken a canyon of 100m wide and 50m deep to have no flooding. Interestingly, aside from the larger gravel shoals at designed deposition points, the bed of the river never changed, showing that the existing 60s defences had worked, but were just overwhelmed. Unfortunately, these events will become more common, so we really need to look at keeping as much higher up catchments, but that would mean wholesale changes to how our catchments are managed, which the antecedent land use is unwilling to do.
comments are exactly what you would expect
After a weekend of relative peace, it's back again, phones blaring with government warnings and torrential rain about 10min later. Lord knows how the places that were flooded last week will fare, the ground is as wet as I've seen it in our 10years here.
comments are exactly what you would expect
Daily fail, innit.. anyone who lives in the area knows damn well it's a local/national government issue rather than an EU issue.