Students tackle 'massive problem' of flooding

Students at the University of Reading's Department of Geography and Environmental Science are learning how to help minimise the damage from future flooding events.

Professor of Hydrology, Hannah Cloake said flooding was "a massive problem to tackle".

"We have students from all kinds of backgrounds. We have meteorologists from all over the world coming here to study" she said.

The students have also been hearing from Mary Long-Dhonau who has been campaigning and providing advice for those affected by flooding for 25 years.

She told the students that flood victims were, on average, out of their homes for nine months.

She said: "The recovery from the flood is far worse than the flood itself, because you suddenly have to become a project manager of a building site.

"There are cheaper solutions to minimising the impact of flooding... you can lift furniture up all by yourself using planks of wood, decorator's trestles for your sofas, aluminium tape will do 100 air bricks," she added.

Prof Cloake said: "We can see the fingerprints of climate change in these floods that we're experiencing now.

"We have to stop burning fossil fuels, but we also have to adapt. We have to adapt our homes, we have to adapt our businesses".

One of the students said: "I think we have a group of young people who are very solution-driven - focused on trying to make a difference for the future generations because I think it's going to maybe affect the generation after us."

Another said she wanted to study a masters in risk analysis and mitigation so she can "help companies to start to look at not only their global impacts but how these impact will then impact them as well".

Ms Long-Dhonau said: "One day soon it won't be property flood resilience, it won't be recoverability, it'll be retreat - because flooding will be so bad and so regular and so prolonged that you won't be able to replace those houses or repair them."

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