fieldwork and reasearch - flood risk

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I used a range of fieldwork and research techniques to investigate flood risk in Guilford, which is located in Surrey. One piece of fieldwork I carried out was storm stimulation tests, which would enable me to collect infiltration rates from different surface types. Urban surfaces like gravel and concrete had a low infiltration rate compared to vegetation surfaces like grass which increased urban surfaces, surface runoff. These pieces of fieldwork helped me see that there will be increased flood risk if there are more urban surfaces this is due to rock permeability. Another piece of fieldwork I carried out was a flood risk survey, which also included research too, to calculate the flood risk. Before I visited Guildford I need to work out the ‘likelihood’, which would then enable me to work out the flood risk by timing it by ‘severity’ which I would work out from each of the sites in Guildford. I used goggle earth to split the area around the river Wey into 12 sections. Using Google earth I could find out the height above river level and distance from the river at each site. Once at Guilford I scored each site based on land use and percentage of built up areas these gave me the ‘severity’ of flooding. It was clear to see form my results that built up areas that were also closer to the river had the greatest risk of flooding. Another piece of fieldwork I carried out to determine the flood risk in Guilford was the bankfull measurement if the river mole. This would show how much water could potentially be held before discharge occurred. I used a tape measure and a metre stick to collect this data. I took depth measurements at several points along the width of the river. This helped me see that having a deeper and wider river would allow more water to be collected and therefore less risk of flooding. However I found that the river mole was deep therefore at risk from flooding. One piece of research I conducted was comparing old and new maps, which I found on Google. I compared different maps from all around surrey to see if the land use had changed as well as the shape. I found a lot of

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Page 1: fieldwork and reasearch - flood risk

I used a range of fieldwork and research techniques to investigate flood risk in Guilford, which is located in Surrey. One piece of fieldwork I carried out was storm stimulation tests, which would enable me to collect infiltration rates from different surface types. Urban surfaces like gravel and concrete had a low infiltration rate compared to vegetation surfaces like grass which increased urban surfaces, surface runoff. These pieces of fieldwork helped me see that there will be increased flood risk if there are more urban surfaces this is due to rock permeability. Another piece of fieldwork I carried out was a flood risk survey, which also included research too, to calculate the flood risk. Before I visited Guildford I need to work out the ‘likelihood’, which would then enable me to work out the flood risk by timing it by ‘severity’ which I would work out from each of the sites in Guildford. I used goggle earth to split the area around the river Wey into 12 sections. Using Google earth I could find out the height above river level and distance from the river at each site. Once at Guilford I scored each site based on land use and percentage of built up areas these gave me the ‘severity’ of flooding. It was clear to see form my results that built up areas that were also closer to the river had the greatest risk of flooding. Another piece of fieldwork I carried out to determine the flood risk in Guilford was the bankfull measurement if the river mole. This would show how much water could potentially be held before discharge occurred. I used a tape measure and a metre stick to collect this data. I took depth measurements at several points along the width of the river. This helped me see that having a deeper and wider river would allow more water to be collected and therefore less risk of flooding. However I found that the river mole was deep therefore at risk from flooding. One piece of research I conducted was comparing old and new maps, which I found on Google. I compared different maps from all around surrey to see if the land use had changed as well as the shape. I found a lot of urbanisation with green surfaces decreasing in size. Therefore this has increased the flood risk in Guilford. Also I researched rainfall data from local weather stations and the Met office and I also collected meteorological data and weather reports from the Met Office. This helped me investigate into the long-term links between precipitation and flooding, which I found a clear link between high precipitation rates and high flooding risk around Guilford. Finally I used ordnance survey maps to research the size and gradient of river drainage basins of the river Mole. I found rainfall in the river mole drainage basin had some step slopes, which means the rain would reach the river quickly, increasing discharge. Therefore this would increase flood risk in the area around the river Mole.