Sir, – The dreadful toll of flooding across Europe this year should invoke far more than sorrow and solidarity with our neighbours especially, but not exclusively, in Spain.
Europe’s flooding has part of its origins in climate change but there is also an enormous legacy of land use change dating back over several centuries. The cutting down of forests for the use of timber as a war material, for agriculture, urbanisation, infrastructure and firewood has left the lands of southern Europe bare of robust soil that could absorb large amounts of rainwater. Continuous arable production means that soil organic matter (the engine of soil activity) is now less than 2 per cent and is not hugely higher in parts of northern Europe. Canalisation of rivers and loss of biodiversity have exacerbated the situation, with the result that the flooding and mayhem today will certainly be repeated again and again. And no country can be sure it won’t receive a visit and soon.
Forests have a proven relationship with clouds in terms of rainfall; and deforestation itself is a contributor to flooding in regions far from the felled forests. This is true not just of Europe but of the Amazon basin, the American plains and many other regions of the world.
The European Commission tried to address the conservation of land through its soil protection proposals of 2006. These were rejected, particularly by Germany, France and the UK, on the grounds of two old chestnuts, namely subsidiarity and regional competence, as if soil erosion caused by flooding stops at regional and national boundaries. I can’t imagine that people in central and southern Europe applauded this approach.
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Europe needs a total rethink on land use. It needs to be far more holistic, far more reflective of the interrelationships between land use across the continent, and its neighbours south and east, and fully cognisant of its total connectivity with water, rainfall, weather and biodiversity. That would truly be a “green deal”, the implementation of which will take at least the remainder of this century. Ireland has a part to play in this work. Its island status is not an escape clause. It might begin by including geography as a core subject in secondary schools. We could then begin to understand and contribute to the mammoth tasks ahead. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL HAMELL,
Dublin 9.