Severe flooding - Climate change hits home

PEOPLE who live near rivers, and residents of low-lying areas in general, are discovering to their cost that global warming is no longer a subject confined to the realms of academic debate.

Any lingering doubts on that score have been drowned by the rising flood waters of recent times, and again over the weekend when severe flooding occurred across the country. The inescapable conclusion is that climate change is a fact of life in Ireland.

Following the costly debacle in Newcastle West, where homes and business premises were swamped in a matter of hours by a flash-flood, swollen rivers burst their banks over the weekend as torrential rain fell in the North and the Republic.

The litany makes grim reading, with roads flooded in Tipperary, Offaly, Laois, Kildare, Wicklow, Cavan, Carlow, Kilkenny, Louth, Meath, Mayo and Waterford. Meanwhile, some 300 passengers were lucky to escape without injury on Saturday when the Cork-Dublin train ran into a mud slide on the track.

According to US and British researchers, powerful thunder storms are a sign of the times. Effectively, the storms we are witnessing confirm the link between warmer climate and extreme rainfall. A major concern is that deluges will become more common and intense as the earth’s climate grows warmer with the result that higher moisture becomes available for condensation.

Besides having potentially disastrous implications for anyone who bought their house on a historic flood plain, often built on the twin foundations of Celtic Tiger greed and questionable planning decisions, the phenomenon also poses a threat to homes in low-lying areas with no record of flooding.

Not alone is the land saturated and water tables abnormally high for the time of year, floods are caused when water is jettisoned from acres of concrete with devastating effects. It would be impossible to exaggerate the social and economic repercussions of the monsoon-style downpours happening with growing frequency up and down the country.

While academics may argue as to whether El Nino or global warming is to blame, the reality is that climate change is already having major implications for home-owners, builders, planners, engineers, farmers, insurers, local authorities and emergency services. Indeed, suspicion is mounting that insurance companies plan to use the floods as an excuse for increasing the cost of home insurance.

Given changing rainfall patterns, a new approach to planning and development is urgently required. Preparing for the 100-year flood is no longer enough. Besides following historic maps, something which should be done as a matter of course, the responsible authorities should also look to the future and examine the experience in warmer climes where thunder storms are common-place. Arguably, some planning decisions should be based on the risk of a 200-year flood.

Not before time, the Government is preparing a report on large-scale flooding in Ireland. The bitter irony is that some politicians and planners are to blame for enabling greedy developers to build on flood plains despite loud warnings against such folly.