Boscastle Flood Flashcards
Where is Boscastle?
South west of England in Cornwall.
When did the Boscastle river flood?
16th August 2004.
What is a flash flood?
A flash flood is caused by heavy or excessive rainfall in a short period of time, generally less than 6 hours.
How much rain fell in bostcastle?
7cm in 2 hours.
What are the potential causes of a flash flood?
Small round basin, steep valley sides, lack of vegetation, heavy rainfall over a long period of time, impermeable rock and ground already saturated.
What were the first two physical cases of the bostcastle flood?
Torrential rain and high tides caused water levels to increase by 2.15m in one hour, remains of Hurrican Alex. Ground already saturated from previous rainfall and could not absorb any more water causing surface runoff.
What were the second two physical causes of the Boscastle flood?
Bostcastle is the confluence point of 3 rivers, this meant the river had high volume of water, very steep land caused flood water to travel very quickly to the valley floor.
What was the final physical cause of the Boscastle flood?
High land caused warm moist air to rise rapidly and condense into clouds that were 12,000 metres high. An estimated 1422 litres of rain fell in two hours.
What were the 2 human causes of the Boscastle flood?
The street pattern increased surface runoff, cars and vegetation became trapped under a low lying bridge acting as a dam and causing an increased flow of water into the village. The old sewer systems were overwhelmed by the volume of water and so water overflowed them.
What were the social impacts of the bostcastle flood?
84 wrecked cars were recovered and 32 never found, 1000 residents and tourists were affected. There was no major injury or loss of life. 58 properties were flooded.
What were the economic impacts of the bostcastle flood?
90% of economy of bostcastle dependant on tourism and more than 20 hotels and bee and breakfasts were forced to shut. Infrastructure damage costed over 2 billion pounds and 25 businesses were destroyed.
What were the environmental impacts of the bostcastle flood?
Four bridged were washed away, trees were uprooted and carried downstream.
What we’re the responses to the Boscastle flood?
7 helicopters from RAF and Navy were used to rescue 120 people, shop owners used sandbags to keep water out snd tourists who lost their cars were given shelter by hotels. Diggers and machinery cleared the streets of debris and uprooted trees. River was widened with 10 million pounds, the car park was also raised to a higher level. This last bit was Dom by the environmental agency.
