Water Level Management and Flood Risk
IDBs have an important role in reducing flood risk through management of water levels and drainage in their districts. The water level management activities of internal drainage boards cover 1.2 million hectares of England which represents 9.7% of the total land area. Reducing the flood risk to ~600,000 people who live or work, and ~879,000 properties located in IDB districts. Whilst many thousands of people outside of these boundaries also derive reduced flood risk from IDB water level management activities. Several forms of critical infrastructure fall within IDB districts including; 56 major power stations (28%) are located within an Internal Drainage District, 68 other major industrial premises and 208 km of motorway. In fact a recent publication by the Association of Drainage Authorities identified that 53% of the installed capacity (potential maximum power output) of major power stations in England and Wales are located within an IDB.
Although of much reduced significance since the 1980s, many IDB districts in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire lie in areas of coal reserves and drainage has been significantly affected by subsidence from mining. IDBs have played an important role in monitoring and mitigating the effects of this activity and have worked in close collaboration with the coal companies and the Coal Authority.
Read more about this topic: Internal Drainage Board
Famous quotes containing the words water, level, management, flood and/or risk:
“Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... when you do get a job everybody says, “Well, they wanted a black woman,” which necessarily puts you on a level where you have to prove yourself above being a woman and being black.... Now, I would say, in certain situations, it helped me simply because I was mildly attractive, not because I was black or a woman. That gets you more mileage than anything else.... God help you if you’re not an attractive woman.”
—Theresa Brown (b. 1957)
“This we take it is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass, that in the management of external things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“The mighty river flowing dark and deep,
With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides
Vague-sounding through the City’s sleepless sleep,
Is named the River of the Suicides;”
—James Thomson (1834–1882)
“It’s a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing—nothing.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)