February generally feels like a good time of year to arrive on a piece of land. It’s still cold, but the days are getting longer and you can feel that the worst of winter is behind you. But this February was quite a special one. Lots of water fell out of the sky. And then lots more water. A week after we arrived I turned on the radio to hear that it was officially the wettest winter in at least 250 years. Amazing to think that you have to go back 10 generations to get to a time when it rained so much.
The River Wye is usually about 200 metres from our cottage (which adjoins the land we are renting), but that week the distance was more like 150 metres. The river was a swelling grey blanket, rushing in the middle but barely creeping at the edges, lapping malevolently at the new shore halfway up the riverside meadow. George Monbiot has written persuasively about how the continued deforestation of upland Britain, subsidised by Common Agricultural Policy payments that encourage farmers to remove the trees on their land, has exacerbated flooding problems in the lowlands. This is because tree roots act as conduit allowing water to percolate through the soil, whereas on grassland a lot more of it will run off and rapidly find its way into lowland rivers. The result is that since the 1930s the increase in flooding in the Wye valley has been far greater than the increase in rainfall. It’s interesting how many of us, myself included, are concerned about deforestation elsewhere but often ignore its effects at home. Nonetheless, I feel that these findings suggest the power of the land if we work with rather than against it - even if some degree of climate change is inevitable, its impact on our well-being will depend in no small part on the health of our forests and soils.
Fortunately for us, while the floods led to various springs and streams popping up around Ragmans Lane Farm, our growing fields remained remarkably free from standing water. I think the good drainage is largely to do with the fields’ proximity to a spring-fed stream and to the rutted old track from which the farm takes its name. Now it’s up to us to remember the benefits of slow-moving water, and resist the temptation to clear these waterways...
The River Wye is usually about 200 metres from our cottage (which adjoins the land we are renting), but that week the distance was more like 150 metres. The river was a swelling grey blanket, rushing in the middle but barely creeping at the edges, lapping malevolently at the new shore halfway up the riverside meadow. George Monbiot has written persuasively about how the continued deforestation of upland Britain, subsidised by Common Agricultural Policy payments that encourage farmers to remove the trees on their land, has exacerbated flooding problems in the lowlands. This is because tree roots act as conduit allowing water to percolate through the soil, whereas on grassland a lot more of it will run off and rapidly find its way into lowland rivers. The result is that since the 1930s the increase in flooding in the Wye valley has been far greater than the increase in rainfall. It’s interesting how many of us, myself included, are concerned about deforestation elsewhere but often ignore its effects at home. Nonetheless, I feel that these findings suggest the power of the land if we work with rather than against it - even if some degree of climate change is inevitable, its impact on our well-being will depend in no small part on the health of our forests and soils.
Fortunately for us, while the floods led to various springs and streams popping up around Ragmans Lane Farm, our growing fields remained remarkably free from standing water. I think the good drainage is largely to do with the fields’ proximity to a spring-fed stream and to the rutted old track from which the farm takes its name. Now it’s up to us to remember the benefits of slow-moving water, and resist the temptation to clear these waterways...