Sir, – Dredging rivers and building more drainage ditches would only speed the runoff of water flooding the towns and cities that straddle our waterways.
It makes sense for our low-lying farmland to be inundated by weeks of rain instead of adding to already swollen rivers. Farmers should be encouraged not to overstock upland areas, reducing the abilities of these areas to soak up water during heavy rain. The planting of trees, which allow water to penetrate the soil up to 60 times faster than grassland, could be further incentivised.
The increasing problem of flooding cannot be solved solely through engineering works. – Yours, etc,
DAVID BURKE,
Cabinteely, Dublin 18.
Sir – Fintan O'Toole rightly highlights the disastrous consequences of development on floodplains and reckless rezoning in the worsening flooding we have seen in Irish towns since the 1990s (" Genuine local democracy part of the solution to flooding", January 5th). Your editorial on the same day acknowledges that traditional, "hard engineering" responses are no longer an appropriate solution to a changing climate and that long-term planning for "managed realignment" – where flooding is planned and land is used as a catchment area for excess water – is a more sensible, albeit potentially unpopular approach.
Accepting all of this, I would still question the blanket assumption that residential development on floodplains is always and everywhere objectionable. Land is a scarce resource and managed realignment also prompts the question as to whether we can meet the challenge of designing places to live with water. One only needs to look to our neighbours in the Netherlands to see that, just as it is possible to retrofit existing houses to make them flood resilient, it is equally feasible to build new housing in a way that adapts to flooding and works with nature. Flood management is not merely a technical or planning problem, but calls for a changed sensibility, a more open engagement with landscape and a capacity to imagine new modes of living for both existing and new communities. – Yours, etc,
Dr KARL WOODS,
Green Design
Build Architects,
Dublin 4.
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole has written a very relevant piece on the current flooding. He points out how the authorities for many years have ignored the local people who have pleaded with them not to build on flood plains. These people know their own areas for generations and, as usual, were ignored and developers got their way, with disastrous results. Thanks for a great article. – Yours, etc,
MARY KIRWAN,
Dublin 14.