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COSTING THE EARTH
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Costing the Earth tells stories which touch all our lives, looking at man's effect on the environment and at how the environment reacts. It questions accepted truths, challenges the people in charge and reports on progress towards improving the world we live in.
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| Flooding in the UK |
Flooding
The recent floods were the worst in the UK for 60 years but flooding on any scale can be devastating. Climatologists predict rainfall is due to become heavier and more frequent and flooding will become more likely, while our defences are quickly becoming outdated. Charlotte Smith investigates whether farming practices have a larger part to play in reducing the risk.
Farmers manage 75% of the UK landscape and intensive farming practices can affect soil quality and the speed at which water flows across the land into rivers and streams. While the Government and NFU advise farmers through voluntary schemes researchers say it's easy to find examples of this not being followed.
Professor Jane Rickson from Cranfield University says while many believed the land had become saturated this was not the case and degraded quality such as 'capping' in the surface layer meant water flowed across the surface rather than being absorbed. Both the Environment Agency and National Farmers Union are carrying out research and argue the link between farming practices and the effect on the wider catchment has not been proven but Professor Stuart Lane from Durham University says, had data on river levels not been disrupted, we might well have that information now. So is the risk of flooding so great that we should adopt the precautionary principle now and take measures that may well help should the worst happen?
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