BOSCASTLE

Boscastle is a village and a tiny port located on the North coast of Cornwall, England. It is 8km Northeast
from Tintagel and 23km South of Bude. It is located on a confluence of 3 rivers. On the 16 th of August
2004 the village Boscastle got flooded, the last major flood they experienced like this was in 1996. It
rained so much that 2 rivers burst their banks. Two billion litters of water rushed down the valley.

PHYSICAL AND HUMAN CAUSES

There were many causes to why this flood happened, physical and human causes. Here are a couple of
physical causes from this flood. First of all, 130mm of rain fell in 6 hours which is nearly double the
average rainfall during all of their August (their average is 70mm-90mm during that month)! This was a
rare amount of rainfall which was one of the main reasons this flood happened! Another physical cause
is that the village is surrounded by mountains, this makes the ‘shape’ look like a cone/funnel, the village
is located at the bottom. When it rains all the water goes down the mountains and ends up on the
village, this cone shape brings lots of water down and saturates the soil, this is what happened a little
before the major rainfall happened. The soil was already saturated so when it started raining for this,
the soil couldn’t absorb any more water this allowed the water to infiltrate and reach the river faster,
not only that but the rock there is also impermeable which means it doesn’t allow water to pass though
it and this leads to higher chances of flooding and surface run-offs, water can’t infiltrate through it.
Lastly one more physical cause is that the mountains and hills had very little vegetation on them so
there was a lack of material to try and slow down the water going down it. This led to heaps of rainfall
going down it all at the same time.

Those were physical causes, here are a few human causes. The main human cause is that in the village of
Boscastle all the rivers got narrowed down due to the development of parks, car parks and the
construction of bridges which in the end were blocked by cars. The village bridge constricted the flow of
the river through the village. Narrowing the rivers meant that there wasn’t enough space to carry the
large amounts of water during the event. Also, the river had been walled so it couldn’t adjust to the
change in water which was rushing down.

SHORT-TERM IMPACTS AND LONG-TERM IMPACTS

The flood brought along short-term and long-term impacts. A short-term impact is that 2 million tons of
water flowed through Boscastle in one day. The massive amount of water took many vehicles with it
around 50. It also destroyed and flooded buildings. Trees were also uprooted. In the end all sorts of
debris were scattered all over the place. Some of the more long-term impacts is that this created a loss
of tourism and a loss of businesses, all of these are economic losses. Another impact was that there was
a loss of habitat, this is an environmental impact. Lastly there was a loss of communications because all
landlines and transport forms got destroyed.

SHORT-TERM RESPONSES AND LONG-TERM RESPONSES

The village received help immediately. Helicopters were used to try and rescue people which were
trapped in their flooded homes, they rescued a little over 100 people. They searched every building.
They also removed all the cars and vehicles that were moved to the harbor and the uprooted trees from
the river channel. Lastly, they just cleared all the roads. After the primary responses, secondary ones
also came in. The village shop was rebuilt and so was the bridge. They also installed water gauging
stations. They rebuild the park, but made it stringer by raising it and given a permeable surface. One of
the biggest responses which will definitely help in the future if anything like this happens again is that
they widened and lowered the river itself. They also improved a drainage culvert to allow water to flow
through.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/case-studies/boscastle