Bath Floods

Since the first settlements by the River Avon and until the last devastating floods in 1960 and 1968, it was accepted that the city of Bath and its nearby area would be inundated every few years.  The 1968 one came in summer.  Others came in winter.  What caused these different floods and why is Bath so vulnerable?

Their legacy has been a flood prevention scheme that radically changed the face of the River Avon in Bath.  Exactly how bad were those floods in the past?  And with climate change bringing more extreme weather, will Bath’s flood defences prevent them from happening again?

For more than twenty years Dr Thomas Kjeldsen has been researching the risks surrounding extreme hydrological events (such as floods and droughts) and the impact of environmental change.  He is Senior Lecturer of the Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering at the University of Bath and in this talk he will share with us the sometimes surprising insights he has gained about the floods in Bath.