Ahead of every winter we need to get the garden ready for the likely flooding to come. This involves securing any items that might be washed away, moving any items that are not being used to a higher location and ensuring all our floating infrastructure is ready for what is to come.
In February 2024, the garden experienced its second and third floods of the year, the fifth in the previous thirteen months.
These more frequent floods are a result of climate change. Each additional 1°C of warming allows the atmosphere to absorb up to 7% more moisture, which in turn means more frequent and heavier rainfall.
A succession of storms – seven in total – towards the end of 2023 left the ground waterlogged, and once the ground is completely saturated it simply cannot absorb any more water. This means that further rainfall has nowhere to go other than to run off into our rivers. That’s why the three storms of 2024 – Henk, Isha and Jocelyn – led to sudden and overwhelming flooding on Pitchcroft.
The situation in Worcester has become so severe that Worcestershire Cricket Club recently announced that it may have to move from the New Road ground which it has occupied for 125 years, and the historic Powick Bridge has been closed for repairs caused by flood damage.
Here at Worcester community garden, we have honed our flood mitigation measures, learning new lessons each time it does flood. An emergency flood response team, which now numbers twelve volunteers, is ready to assemble at short notice whenever flooding looks likely, in order to ensure plants, tools, benches and other furniture are as safe and secure as possible.
In order to adapt to this growing threat we now have floating bee hives, a floating office, a floating greenhouse and a floating compost toilet. We continue to search for new ideas to make our garden more resilient.
Thanks to volunteer Fleur Visser for the wonderful drone photography