Discuss the causes of the Morpeth Flood of 2008 and evaluate the responses to it (40 marks)

On Saturday the 6th September 2008, Morpeth was described to have received the worst flooding in the town’s history, Morpeth is an old market town which is situated in a loop of the river Wansbeck in the northeast of England, about 15 miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne and 12 miles west from the North sea. Morpeth is no stranger to flooding, a severe flood occurred in 1963, in which over 500 properties were flooded, the flood defences put in place were designed to contain a repeat of the flood magnitude in 1963, although the 2008 flood was in excess of this and the flood defences were not able to manage there were various questions that were raised post flood, these included whether the town could have been better prepared for the flood, was there enough warning of what was the come and did it leave the locals in the town enough time to react to the situation and also whether the town’s rescue plan was effective and stood up to the test. Despite questions being raised about the human errors that led to the Morpeth flood being so severe there were no questions asked about what physical features attributed towards the flood, this included the intense and sustained rainfall the Morpeth and the surrounding area was subject to, the summer of 2008 had been unusually wet in the north-east of England so the ground was already very saturated, figures from the Environmental agency rainfall and river flow data show that on the 4th, 5th and 6th of September alone, the Morpeth area received 235% of the rainfall that could normally be expected in the whole of September, the flood is estimated to have been a 1 in 115 year event, the prolonged rainfall coincided with the flood peak from higher areas of the catchment which led to a peak water level of 3.99 metres was recorded in the river