Summary: The River Parrett Flooding

Introduction

In the period from December 2013 until February 2014 there was prolonged rain, hurricane force wind speeds and tidal surges affecting the south of England, and in particular the coastal plain and wetland area of the Somerset Levels and Moors. Somerset is located in the South West of England, South of Wales and west to London, an area prone to flooding. The River Parrett along with parts of the Axe and Brue burst their banks, covering the surrounding floodplain with water. According to Morris (2014), flooding the previous year had been noted a ‘one in a 100 year event’ making the extent of the flooding unexpected. A social impact is the effect of an activity on an area and well-being of the people.

Social Impacts

Much like

As shown in figure 1, the blue represents the areas flooded, which includes parts of Glastonbury, the area of Stoke and Martock both north west to Yeovil and an area in Somerton with over 128,000 acres flooded (Morris, 2014).

Transport links were debilitated disrupting lives and houses inundated with water, it was recorded that 175 homes were flooded (Jones, Chadwick and Jones 2014). However, the impact varied and some were affected much more than others due to lack of structuring and defences in place to protect the home. It was inevitable social impact due to the 100 million cubic meters of water that filled the floodplain of the river Parrett as noted by Thorne

The effects were reduced by the action that had been taken to make improvements and prepare for flooding previously in 2007. This was undertaken following the fatal storm surge that hit the coast of Sussex and Norfolk with improved planning, evacuation and rescue strategies along with more defences such as housing soakaways put in place (McEwen, Jones, & Robertson 2014). There were no fatalities or major injuries due to the resources available and the developed status of the area. If a flood this severe had hit a less developed country like Bangladesh the effects would have been significantly worse. However, according to Rowe (2015) the cost of the damage and insurance was high, reaching a rate of about £200 million lost just on the tourist industry. Somerset is reliant on tourism and 70% of businesses such as shops and restaurants were affected with many having to close for months losing some locals main source of income. More positively, the county was hit in winter months; therefore they had more time to recover before their peak tourist time in the