This Winter was wet in the UK. We had a lot of rain and one thing we noticed was that things seemed to stay wetter for longer. From our walks in the forest, to agricultural land we passed, to our local park, we saw evidence of waterlogged ground. We are, of course used to seeing surface water after heavy rain, but this year there seemed to be something different about it: The land seemed to be in a semi-flooded state for weeks – months even – after the heaviest of the rain had passed. There was something about this – not just that we were seeing it, but also that nobody seemed to be talking about it – that warranted further investigation.
We all know that the Earth’s climate is changing due to human activity and we are seeing more extreme weather. Weather and climate are immensely complex systems and the way these extremes manifest can be considerably different in different parts of the world: Warming at the North Pole causes the Polar Vortex winds to slow down which in turn can lead to uncharacteristically cold Winters in Europe and North America, for instance.
We are all, no doubt, used to seeing the more extreme results of climate breakdown: Headline-grabbing stories about starving Polar Bears and Pacific islanders being forced to flee their homes are becoming all too frequent, but these stories can also suggest that climate breakdown is happening elsewhere – that it is not something that impacts us directly. What many people do not see is the impact climate breakdown is having closer to home. This may be less obvious, but it is no less real and may, in the future, turn out to have very dire consequences if we don’t take steps to address the problems that are starting to show themselves now (and, indeed, the problems that have been apparent, but perhaps manageable, for decades!).
ID: A landscape format image. A woodland scene. Bare trees emerge from a forest floor covered in fallen brown leaves and dead grass. Everything is soaked wet and there are large pools of flood water around the bases of the trees.
One of the first things we learn as children is that actions come with consequences and this is equally true for weather systems: if stress is applied in one part of the system, then a consequence will occur elsewhere. As we researched the possible causes and effects of the increased standing water we had witnessed, we started to see that this was not simply down to unusual levels of rainfall, but instead, was rather part of a larger set of interconnected processes.
In many instances, the standing water can be traced back to the opposite extreme of weather: the drought conditions we have experienced in Summer months. To understand why, we need to talk about soil. To be honest, we’d never really thought about soil much until recently, but it is a genuinely fascinating subject and, far from just being ‘dirt’ is a complex system comprising many materials, each with its own characteristics. Small changes in any of these can radically alter the properties of soil and how it behaves under different circumstances. Extreme heat and lack of rain dries out soil. This in turn leads to it compacting; healthy soil should contain air spaces and moisture freely moving around particles of clay, rock, sand and decomposing organic matter. If soil dries out, then soil is more prone to being compacted and much of this air space is lost. The soil starts to act less like a permeable medium through which water can freely move and more like a barrier that repels water. Without intervention to fix this, when it does eventually rain, water cannot easily drain through the compacted soil.
This is a culminative process too: several years of hot, dry summers will compound the problem so that each year the subsequent waterlogging is more severe and longer-lasting. In turn, prolonged waterlogging reduces the organic content in soil, meaning it will dry out faster and for longer during the next period of drought. A further issue here is the makeup of the soil in an area. In the South of the UK, for instance, many of the soils have naturally high clay or chalk content and both these soil types are naturally more prone to compacting, thus further exacerbating the situation.
Beyond the inconvenience of spaces being semi-flooded or extremely muddy for long periods of time, why does any of this matter? It turns out that standing water can have a whole range of negative impacts on the eco-system – many of which may not be immediately obvious. First of all, rain does not just fall in one place and flooding is not just limited to green spaces. If nearby built-up areas have flooded there is a risk of drains overflowing which can, in turn, lead to pollution. Beyond this, if soil is saturated with water, its oxygen content will plummet and this, in turn will have a negative impact on the plants and organisms that make their home in that soil.
ID: A landscape format image. A field of green grass with a row of trees in the background on an overcast day. A large pool of flood water runs the entire width of the image.
This poses a number of troubling questions: what damage will an increase in flooding cause to the plant and animal life that makes the soil their home? Could we be looking at a die-off in mature trees in years to come? Or a loss of microbial and insect life that could lead to a collapse further up the food chain?
Fay’s Mother is from a farming background – her parent’s grew food crops in Lincolnshire in the North of England – and we asked for her thoughts on this. She recounted the story of one particular field in her parent’s farm that was prone to flooding. She said that the produce from that field was generally lower quality than identical crops grown from identical seed batches in neighbouring fields: the plants grew slower, yielding lower crops of smaller vegetables. This is hardly scientific data, but anecdotal evidence like this cannot be ignored.
ID: A landscape format image. A woodland scene. Bare trees emerge from a forest floor covered in fallen leaves. Everything is soaked wet and there are large pools of flood water around the bases of the trees.
The Royal Horticultural Society provides the next piece of the puzzle and, whilst there is plenty of positive information in their article, one key takeaway does not make for settling reading:
‘After flooding, edible crops near to harvest are best not eaten: no assurances can be given that root crops will be safe to eat, so they should be discarded. Plants eaten raw should be discarded too, and it is prudent to avoid growing salads and other uncooked crops for two years in case disease spores remain in the soil. However, the following year after flooding,it should be safe to grow crops that are to be cooked.’
It’s important to note that this information is aimed at gardeners rather than commercial farmers, but the implication is clear: flooding and water-logged soil impact food production and quality. Now, flooding has always been a reality of farming – especially in the UK – but as human activity feeds the climate crisis, we can clearly see that this will have a knock-on effect on food production. If the cycle of drought in Summer followed by Winter flooding continues, it’s not hard to see how this could lead to increased prices and reduced choices in the supermarket in the short term, and perhaps wider food shortages if the pattern continues.
Reductions to or disruptions in food production is often mentioned as a consequence of the climate emergency, however, this is often illustrated with examples from Sub-Saharan Africa or East Asia. Put simply, in the wider conversation, it’s often portrayed as a problem for the developing world. We absolutely cannot ignore the fact that many of the world’s poorest inhabitants will be the ones who are impacted soonest and most severely by this, but we must also realise that this problem is certainly not localised. An increase in our weekly shopping bills, or certain types of produce no longer being available may seem like only a minor inconvenience, but these first signs cannot be ignored because these issues will not fix themselves and the problem will only get worse if we choose to ignore it.
ID: A landscape format image. A field of green grass on an overcast day. There are building in the background. A large pool of flood water runs the entire width of the image. We can see grass growing beneath the water.
One issue that we kept returning to whilst researching this piece is that nobody seems to be talking specifically about these issues. In fairness, this statement isn’t strictly accurate: there’s plenty of research on the impact flooding and soil degradation has on the quality and productivity of land, and there’s also plenty of research that links soil degradation to climate breakdown. However, the research that’s out there seems to focus on smaller parts of the problem (understandably, many studies focus on farming and food production), rather than looking at this as a wider, cohesive issue. We believe there’s still much research that can be done here and also a great deal that can be done to raise awareness of this issue. We understand fully that degraded soil quality is not exactly a headline-grabbing story in the same way that sea ice loss at the Arctic is, but none the less it seems that without more conversation (and action!) about this, we are walking blindly into a trap. It is simply mind-boggling to us that we live in a world where people can actively question the validity of human climate change or, to a similar but far lesser extent, dismiss it as something that ‘doesn’t affect us’, or is still a long way down the line when there is clear evidence of the damage it is causing right now in farmer’s fields and even local parks. It is clear that things need to change here.
There is one positive we can take from this: We have time to enact positive change. Beyond wider, societal changes in terms of reducing our species’ carbon output, there are a range of decidedly low-tech, traditional methods of soil-management that can be brought to bear to help. Traditional cultivation and drainage techniques may be labour-intensive, but they offer ways to mitigate or even reverse the damage to soil quality that comes from climate breakdown. We also have the opportunity to lobby our politicians to enact change here: whether that’s comprehensive research into the likely impact the climate emergency will have on soil quality and, by implication, food quality or, from a conservation standpoint to ensure that the management of local green spaces takes account of these challenges.
ID: A landscape format image. A woodland scene. Bare trees emerge from a forest floor covered in fallen brown leaves and dead grass. Everything is soaked wet and there are large pools of flood water around the bases of the trees.
We also have the opportunity to start a conversation about this subject – whether that’s amplifying the story through social media or simply discussing it with friends and family – it’s important to rase awareness of issues like this. Whilst out shooting images for this article, we got talking to some walkers who assumed we were trying to photograph a deer rather than a flooded field.When we explained what we were actually photographing and why, they seemed really taken aback – both said they’d never considered the damage even minor flooding could cause over time. This is the kind of conversation we think is important: it brings perhaps otherwise ignored matters to the fore. We can only hope that this subject gets the attention it deserves whilst we still have time to act.