{"id":83,"date":"2021-01-31T09:25:03","date_gmt":"2021-01-31T09:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/?p=83"},"modified":"2021-01-31T16:32:57","modified_gmt":"2021-01-31T16:32:57","slug":"rising-waters-in-cockermouth-the-impacts-of-flooding-on-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/2021\/01\/31\/rising-waters-in-cockermouth-the-impacts-of-flooding-on-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising waters in Cockermouth: The impacts of flooding on communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Gabriella Goodridge –\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Flooding severely impacts human populations, accounting for an estimated 157,000 deaths and combined loss of 1891 billion US$ worldwide from 1994-2015 [1]. Floods may also indirectly result in other disasters from small-scale landslides to large scale events like nuclear meltdowns.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1: Flooding aftermath – broken walls at Southwaite Bridge. Image: Morebyless, CC BY 2.0 [3]<\/p><\/div>The UK is no exception to these natural hazards. Cockermouth is a market town located in North West Cumbria (England). It is situated at the confluence of the River Cocker and the River Derwent. Due this meet of rivers, it is susceptible to flooding, with \u201c15 flood events recorded since detailed records began in 1761\u201d [2]. This blog will discuss a fairly recent flood which happened here in 2009.<\/p>\n

The 2009 Cockermouth floods occurred on quite a large scale, affecting ~700 residential properties and 225 businesses (80% of businesses in the town). A flood risk journal surveyed a number of businesses, 75% of which were flooded and a further 17% of which weren\u2019t, however claimed they had experienced indirect impacts. [4]<\/p>\n

The table below analyses the importance of primary and secondary effects on businesses:<\/p>\n

Overall, from this data we can see the vast amount of impacts on businesses. Primary (short-term) impacts included travel difficulties, spoiling\/damage of products and loss of electricity. Secondary (long-term) impacts included an increase in insurance costs and loss of trade down the line.<\/p>\n

Looking at this data, the secondary effects are more likely to be the \u201cindirect effects\u201d faced by the 17% of businesses mentioned before. The original paper notes that visitors were deterred from travelling here due to the belief that it was \u201cinaccessible\u201d. [4]<\/p>\n

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Figure 2: \u201cRankings of impacts according to relative importance index (RII) values\u201d. [4]<\/p><\/div>In addition to the catastrophic economic costs, social consequences arise. It is acknowledged that \u201cFlooding may create physical and psychological health effects including injuries and stress.\u201d [4]<\/p>\n

One woman who was interviewed by the BBC claimed that not only was she \u201cstranded on the first floor of her home\u201d but also that she was pondering \u201cam I going to survive or not?\u201d [5]. This implies that as well as community spirit and business being degraded by the aforementioned economic impacts, there may also be some form of trauma in individuals from these floods.<\/p>\n

Finally, environmental impacts result from flooding. This may include pollution as sewage and chemicals are washed into the water, contaminating it [6]. Also, the river may get eroded more quickly if it bursts its banks resulting in potential habitat destruction and more debris downstream [6]. Judging by the nature of the 2009 flood we can assume that the surrounding area would have experienced these described impacts.<\/p>\n

In conclusion floods vary at a range of scales and impacts. The 2009 Cockermouth floods describe how not all floods are necessarily deadly but still can have detrimental effects on people, business and the environment. Hence, we must do our best to not only prevent flooding in the first place but also to have suitable measures in place to aid business and victims if one occurs.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

References<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Williams, M. (2017), 3 billion people affected by flooding disasters in 20 years. Channel 4 News. Viewed 21\/11\/2020 https:\/\/www.channel4.com\/news\/factcheck\/2-3-billion-people-affected-by-flooding-disasters-in-20-years#:~:text=Flooding%20has%20accounted%20for%20nearly<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. McCall, I. et al. (2016), Cockermouth S.19 Flood Investigation Report. Cumbria County Council, page 8.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Morebyless, CC BY 2.0 https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Southwaite_Mill_Bridge_Cockermouth_November_2009.jpg<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Wedawatta, G. et al. (2012). Small businesses and flood impacts: the case of the 2009 flood event in Cockermouth. Journal of Flood Risk Management Volume 7, Issue 1. Blackwell Publishing Ltd and The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), pages 42\u201353.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. (2013), Cockermouth floods: How community coped with 2009 devastation. BBC News. Viewed 22\/11\/2020 https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-cumbria-22772151<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  6. (N.D), Impact of flooding. BBC Bitesize. Viewed 29\/11\/2020 https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/bitesize\/guides\/ztb78mn\/revision\/3<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    by Gabriella Goodridge –\u00a0 Flooding severely impacts human populations, accounting for an estimated 157,000 deaths and combined loss of 1891 billion US$ worldwide from 1994-2015 [1]. Floods may also indirectly result in other disasters from small-scale landslides to large scale events like nuclear meltdowns. The UK is no exception to these natural hazards. Cockermouth is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1374,"featured_media":20,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[26,30,29],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change","tag-climate-change","tag-extreme-weather","tag-flooding"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/files\/2021\/01\/Floods.png?fit=779%2C516","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/lec101blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}