SAFAG sees a silver lining in June’s downpour

The heavy and persistent rainfall throughout June played havoc with the plans the Shipston Area Flood Action Group (SAFAG) had to introduce flood alleviation measures into the southern and eastern parts of the catchment area. But on the plus side, the downpours provided the severest test yet of the effectiveness of existing installations.

As a condition of the funding SAFAG receives, the interventions have to be monitored to ensure they are performing efficiently. Some monitoring is handled automatically with solar powered cameras feeding pictures directly to the Environment Agency. Group members are also allocated sites to visit and photograph at times of excessive rainfall. So important is this data that Kings College London have installed their own recording devices in the catchment as part of a worldwide study into rainfall and the impact upon flooding.

During the June downpour, it was extremely rewarding for the team to receive feedback from some of the Pigbrook landowners and farmers that interventions on their land were working and that Shoulderway Lane, which historically floods under a deluge of similar scale, remained unaffected.

So just maybe in these reported cases, the clouds did have a silver lining!

Well done and thank you to everyone involved for their hard work (see page 14 for more news about SAFAG).