The Flooding Aire

The green spaces and places of Leeds
simonm
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Post by simonm »

Cardiarms wrote: Hydraulics is funny stuff. Shift the water quickly through one place and it all arrives a the same time somewhere else. Hopefully that place has the space for it. How very true. Those poor sods down on the stream, well it's just been upgraded to a river in the Dunhills, near halton moor are constantly flooded out after extensive works on the stream further up in Roundhay!! Obviously nowt to do with Hydraulics, but how the fact you work to aleviate a problem in one area and make it 10 times worse elsewhere.
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raveydavey
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Post by raveydavey »

simonm wrote: Cardiarms wrote: Hydraulics is funny stuff. Shift the water quickly through one place and it all arrives a the same time somewhere else. Hopefully that place has the space for it. How very true. Those poor sods down on the stream, well it's just been upgraded to a river in the Dunhills, near halton moor are constantly flooded out after extensive works on the stream further up in Roundhay!! Obviously nowt to do with Hydraulics, but how the fact you work to aleviate a problem in one area and make it 10 times worse elsewhere. And that is the real issue. Currently the river regularly floods down Woodlesford and then at Allerton Bywater / Castleford way, but it has until recently only encroached upon flood plains that are designed to 'soak it up' if you like. The trouble is that developments are getting closer and closer to the river all the time here - some recently built industrial units are literally a roads width from where I've seen flood waters reach in the last few years, so if all the water that normally floods upstream if forced downstream than you don't need to be a genius to figure out what will happen. Solving the problem in one area simply shifts it elsewhere unless the powers that be are careful.The sensible solution would be to have holding areas designed to flood at various points on the river network to allow a controlled release once the immediate problems have passed. There is currently ample room to do this in the Wykebeck Valley (Between North and South Parkways) which would solve the problems in the Dunhills, but the council are hell bent on developing this green belt land for housing, despite no-one else wanting it.Sadly given the cost of land / recent allowing of development on such land, I can't see how this is going to happen. So, do we build a 4 metre high wall on the Aire from Skipton to the Humber estuary then?
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blackprince
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Post by blackprince »

raveydavey wrote: simonm wrote: Cardiarms wrote: Hydraulics is funny stuff. Shift the water quickly through one place and it all arrives a the same time somewhere else. Hopefully that place has the space for it. How very true. Those poor sods down on the stream, well it's just been upgraded to a river in the Dunhills, near halton moor are constantly flooded out after extensive works on the stream further up in Roundhay!! Obviously nowt to do with Hydraulics, but how the fact you work to aleviate a problem in one area and make it 10 times worse elsewhere. And that is the real issue. Currently the river regularly floods down Woodlesford and then at Allerton Bywater / Castleford way, but it has until recently only encroached upon flood plains that are designed to 'soak it up' if you like. The trouble is that developments are getting closer and closer to the river all the time here - some recently built industrial units are literally a roads width from where I've seen flood waters reach in the last few years, so if all the water that normally floods upstream if forced downstream than you don't need to be a genius to figure out what will happen. Solving the problem in one area simply shifts it elsewhere unless the powers that be are careful.The sensible solution would be to have holding areas designed to flood at various points on the river network to allow a controlled release once the immediate problems have passed. There is currently ample room to do this in the Wykebeck Valley (Between North and South Parkways) which would solve the problems in the Dunhills, but the council are hell bent on developing this green belt land for housing, despite no-one else wanting it.Sadly given the cost of land / recent allowing of development on such land, I can't see how this is going to happen. So, do we build a 4 metre high wall on the Aire from Skipton to the Humber estuary then? These 4m high walls sound like the levees along the Mississipi & Tennesse Valley which the US army engineers built following the ( first!) great depression in the 1930s. I get the impression that they have always been contraversial. Without dredging the river bed just keeps rising after the canalisation, and the height of the levees also has to be raised so that you end up with a river which is elevated above the surrounding landscape. The levees probably reduced the frequency of flooding but when they are breeched or overtopped then the flooding is probably more severe.When its built I look forward to driving my chevy to the levee in Leeds.
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chameleon
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Post by chameleon »

raveydavey wrote: simonm wrote: Cardiarms wrote: Hydraulics is funny stuff. Shift the water quickly through one place and it all arrives a the same time somewhere else. Hopefully that place has the space for it. How very true. Those poor sods down on the stream, well it's just been upgraded to a river in the Dunhills, near halton moor are constantly flooded out after extensive works on the stream further up in Roundhay!! Obviously nowt to do with Hydraulics, but how the fact you work to aleviate a problem in one area and make it 10 times worse elsewhere. And that is the real issue. Currently the river regularly floods down Woodlesford and then at Allerton Bywater / Castleford way, but it has until recently only encroached upon flood plains that are designed to 'soak it up' if you like. The trouble is that developments are getting closer and closer to the river all the time here - some recently built industrial units are literally a roads width from where I've seen flood waters reach in the last few years, so if all the water that normally floods upstream if forced downstream than you don't need to be a genius to figure out what will happen. Solving the problem in one area simply shifts it elsewhere unless the powers that be are careful.The sensible solution would be to have holding areas designed to flood at various points on the river network to allow a controlled release once the immediate problems have passed. There is currently ample room to do this in the Wykebeck Valley (Between North and South Parkways) which would solve the problems in the Dunhills, but the council are hell bent on developing this green belt land for housing, despite no-one else wanting it.Sadly given the cost of land / recent allowing of development on such land, I can't see how this is going to happen. So, do we build a 4 metre high wall on the Aire from Skipton to the Humber estuary then? Much of the problem could arise from the increasing quantity of top water that's fed into the stream I think Davy. A consequence of developing land is that less and less of the rain falling can soak into the ground and follow nature's course of slowly making its way to streams and becks, instead, it's collected almost on mass and piped to its destination, in this case, Wykebeck.The flooding in the Wykebeck area the other year was attributed to the large volumes arriving in this manner withblockages forming at the in and outlets to the various culverts. There was a very good map of all this in the Report written at the time which I tried to find again for use in the thread talking about Foundry Mill but Yorkshire Water have thoughtfully disposed of this without keeping a copy as well as a lot of other recent useful documents!Naturally this, even with the holding tanks in place along the route, sometimes can't cope. To the North of York Road, at Killingbeck there was a very large pond which would have performed the function of a large holding area too in days gone by. In addition, there was a second run-off from this under york road to a reservoir which would have absorbed some of the flow in those days.There has been a great deal of ground work done over the years which results in the deep chanel of the present Wykebeck valley as it approaches York Road at least; I don't think using the area as a flood plane would work - the levels and resultant levels of collecting water could well interfere with the ability of the sewerage to remove water from the adjacent higher ground which in itself could simply move the problem from A to B.The blue areas on the map show the projected 'flood' and 'extreme flood' areas for Wykebeck.
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sundowner
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Post by sundowner »

There was a big problem with flooding on the ring road years ago with flood water flooding the road from Henconner Lane to Ringways.Since the big catchment area was dug near Mc Donalds i dont think they have had any more problems. The trouble is not every were has the spare land to put in a large catchment area of this size.    

raveydavey
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Post by raveydavey »

sundowner wrote: There was a big problem with flooding on the ring road years ago with flood water flooding the road from Henconner Lane to Ringways.Since the big catchment area was dug near Mc Donalds i dont think there have any more problems. The trouble is not every were has the spare land to put in a large catchment area of this size. That is exactly the sort of thing that could be used in the Wykebeck Valley. There is ample room to fit a dam like that in anywhere between North Parkway and York Road, with the obvious location being either between North Parkway and Brooklands Drive http://www.multimap.com/s/jrWkalzC or between South Parkway Approach and Foundry Lane. The first one of those would seem the best candidate as the valley opens out more there, whereas further on a good deal more excavation would be required for the other option.
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Brandy
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Post by Brandy »

What you mean like they have done on oakwood lane/foundry approach?
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chameleon
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Post by chameleon »

'The first one of those would seem the best candidate as the valley opens out more there, whereas further on a good deal more excavation would be required for the other option. 'Certainly would, that's the very area which was largely backfilled when the A64 was realigned and the Valley Walk later created and and the office park was built, further back is very flat if you think so a large deep excavation needed again. I was thinking from your last post you were sggesting simply daming the beck allowing the existing deep chanel to form a lake.A positive indiator, most of that is designated open space with no development planned as such. Seriously doubt they'd consider the risk justified the cost though.    

simonm
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Post by simonm »

sundowner wrote: There was a big problem with flooding on the ring road years ago with flood water flooding the road from Henconner Lane to Ringways.Since the big catchment area was dug near Mc Donalds i dont think there have any more problems. The trouble is not every were has the spare land to put in a large catchment area of this size. AND, it was working fine, until one pratt from Yorks waters decided to panic and open the flood gates a few years ago, when the ressie was under a bit of pressure from serious heavy downpours. Flooded all along the ring road, like of which have'nt been seen since the thing was built. Why they did that no can explain. It's a pit, so there was no issue of it breaking etc and to open the gates all the way was silly. Open a bit to help, but all the way. It looked, at the time like a massive hydor electric damn with the water gushing out of it.    
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Cardiarms
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Post by Cardiarms »

Don't know the details of that but it is unusual to be YW's responsibility. It's not used for water resources and plays no part in Waste Water collection and treatment. Logically it should be council or EA.

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