25 signatures reached
To: David Cameron
Pay upland farmers to help prevent flooding
Dear David Cameron,
For the sake of all flood victims (residents, farmers, businesses and the UK economy), I implore you to listen to expert hydrologists and act on their advice. Current subsidies to hill farmers are actually causing problems down stream by paying them to cultivate and lay bare our watersheds. It is much more cost effective to pay our upland farmers to be part of the solution to flooding and not to be the cause of the problem.
Dredging is NOT the answer. It is ineffective and costly. This is not new knowledge to expert hydrologists, in fact the UK has been preaching this to developing countries for years with excellent results. It is time to bring that knowledge back home.
I refer you to an informative article recently published in The Guardian as a starting point: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/flooding-public-spending-britain-europe-policies-homes
Why is this important?
With rising sea levels and climate change (whatever the cause of that change) the problem of flooding is not going to get better, it will only get worse. Everyone, especially the Government, needs to be better educated about the management of our water courses, or hydrology, in order to make informed, intelligent choices about where we focus our limited financial resources.
Flooding caused devastation to people, our economy and our environment. We must act now to change Government spending habits which currently serve to increase flooding rather than decrease it.
I refer people to the well referenced article in the Guardian as a starting point: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/flooding-public-spending-britain-europe-policies-homes
Follow the references for more details.
