00:00 Wide
– Dorset coast; waves coming into shore
Holiday
chalets on crumbling cliff tops
Flooding
– Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire (archive amateur footage)
As
above
Dr
McEwen
c.u.
photograph of flooding on the Severn river
Group
shot – Dr McEwen and colleagues
Wide
– Rock Groyne on Dorset coast
c.u.
Brian James studying cliff line
Over
shoulder shot – B. James looking at coastline
Wide
– B. James standing on rock groyne
Dr
McEwen and colleagues looking at flood marker
c.u.
researcher and flood marker
Dr
McEwen and colleague study photograph
c.u.
photograph
Guide Voice: The environment we live in is
constantly changing. Forces of nature re-shape the land around us,
flooding our rivers and battering our coastlines – but have
we learnt to live with these changes?
Dr Lindsey McEwen, from the UK’s University of
Gloucestershire, is leading a unique project to involve local
communities in researching their histories in order to improve
understanding of longer term flood risk along the lower reaches of
the River Severn. And Brian James, from BournemouthUniversity, is
part of a team concerned with the protection of the coastline,
involved in the debate between the use of heavy sea defences and
simply letting nature take its course.
Dr McEwen believes that a community based approach to
understanding the history of local flood risk is key in developing
sustainable solutions to the problems caused by flooding.
00:46 SOT: Dr. Lindsey McEwen, Principal Lecturer
in Physical Geography, University of Gloucestershire
- “My research interests incorporate looking
at historical flood patterns, looking at how historical flood
patterns sit within present day flood series and I conceived the
project as being something that was novel that you actually engaged
the public in that process as part of increasing the public
awareness of flood risk.”
01:05 Wide
and zoom in on graphic showing the River Severn and local
towns
Archive
photograph – Flooding in Tewkesbury, 1947
As
above
As
above
Archive
film footage of 1960’s flooding (2 clips)
Group
shot, Dr McEwen and research assistants (Christelle Angeniol and
Russell Goodwin)
c.u.
finger pointing at map locations
Wide,
Dr McEwen and assistants
Research
assistants looking at photos of flooding
Medium
shot, Christelle Angeniol and Russell Goodwin
c.u.
Russell Goodwin
Fingers
pointing at photos
c.u.
Christelle Angeniol
Checking
photos against maps
Guide Voice: The River Severn, in the west of
England, has a long history of flooding, with some records going
back as far as the 13th century, so it’s ideal as
a case study. As these newspaper photos from 1947 and amateur film
footage from the 1960s show – it has experienced quite major
floods at intervals over the years and it is official records of
these floods, as well as personal recollections, scientific
documentation and other archival sources that Dr McEwen believes
will provide essential information to help increase local knowledge
of the changing patterns of flood risk. This also helps communities
to prepare for the impact of future flooding.
While the debate about global warming goes on there is little
doubt that the world’s climate is changing. This change
brings increasing variability of weather conditions and the
probability of more frequent flooding. Levies and barriers are
expensive to build and create other problems when they fail, so
projects to find more sustainable means of dealing with flooding
are increasingly important.
02:01 SOT: Dr McEwen - “I
think that in a climate change context where you can anticipate
greater frequency of flooding, more moderate floods as well as the
extremes then looking at other options is very important because
it’s not financially sustainable for communities to protect
against the highest floods that are going to occur in those
scenarios. So I would say looking at alternatives is very important
and increasing awareness not just in community members but people
in local authorities, planners the whole sweep of people who might
be embraced in the term community rather than just the people who
are residents who are vulnerable on flood plains”
02:40 Wide
of Christchurch Bay, Dorset
Rock
Groyne and sign
Wide
and zoom in on graphic showing Dorset coast and Christchurch
Bay
Wide
– Brian James studying maps
c.u.
Brian James
c.u.
hand tracing coastline on monochrome map
c.u.
Brian James
c.u.
pencil tracing coastline on coloured map
Wide
over-shoulder shot of B. James and Ordinance Survey maps
Wide
– coastal protection at Christchurch Bay
Couple
strolling on cliff top
Wide
– rock groyne
Guide Voice: Scientists also suggest that
we might need to find more sustainable means of managing our
coastlines At Christchurch Bay on the Dorset coast there is a
perfect example of the contrast between the use of heavy
engineering solutions and simply allowing nature to take its
course.
At Highcliffe, to the west, valuable housing on the cliff top
means that extensive engineering solutions have been employed to
protect the coastline. At Barton on Sea, to the east, the coastline
has been left unprotected, leading to natural erosion. The
protected area might, on first appearance, be more aesthetically
pleasing, but how important is it to protect stretches of coast to
this extent?
03:19 SOT:- Brian
James, Senior Lecturer - Environmental and
Geographical Sciences, School
of Conservation
Sciences, Bournemouth
University – “For those people that
are affected directly by it it’s a very big problem. But we
shouldn’t forget it’s a very natural process that has
gone on for a very long time and will continue to go on as part of
a very big natural process – the key thing is learning how to
cope with it and how to manage it that is sustainable in terms of
cost and is sensible in terms of what we’re able to protect
and what is clearly not cost effective to protect”.
03:51 Wide
– Christchurch Bay (unprotected area)
Pan
left and down from cliff-top cottage to terraced cliff and coastal
protection
Pan
from protected coastline to unprotected area
Wide
of crumbling cliff showing chalets at cliff edge
Wide
of unprotected cliff area
Wide
of unprotected Bay
Guide Voice: Climate change is likely to
affect sea levels and in turn may alter erosion patterns along our
coast. Existing coastal engineering defences may help to exacerbate
the problem. By studying areas like Christchurch Bay researchers
can learn a lot about the patterns of erosion and work with the
natural process to ensure that engineering intervention is only
used where it is most needed and that natural erosion, which
creates its own, less intrusive defence systems is left to happen
wherever possible.
04:20 SOT: Brian James –
“In the past, certainly, the approach has been very much
one of hard coastal engineering and that’s played an
important role; but more and more now, the understanding of the
natural processes is leading us towards a clearer view that
it has to be an integrated process.”
04:40 Medium
wide – eroded cliffs
Pull
out from cyclist to reveal Dorset coastline
Guide Voice: One thing is clear; as
climate change makes environmental forces ever more unpredictable
and the costs of flood and coastal defences rise; we need solutions
for the future that work with nature, rather than against it.
04:53 END
Flooding footage by kind courtesy of E.
Hill
