UKH

Is there something weird going on this winter?

My garden back onto some woods, and I've lived at this house (South London) for 11 years.

The woods seem to have a few trees fall every year, not a big deal, but this year they seem to be falling like dominos.

The woods are unmanaged.

Do woods go through a cyclic effect of grow and fall?

It hasn't been unusually windy or wet this year down here at least.

I know from highway widening works if a strip of trees a cut, the adjacent uncut trees can easily fall over because they haven't grown in exposed conditions.

Wondering if something similar is happening in my local woods where enough trees have fallen that it's a bit of a run away effect.

Could it be due to ash dieback disease? When it first arrived in my locale quite a lot of them were badly hit but many seemed to recover partially. I think it was a stay of execution though and now some of them are pretty much dead trees standing.

As Lankyman says probably ash die back…we’ve had a few go down our way.

Ahh, yes that's probably right. 

I'll have an explore this weekend to see if I can tell (I may not able to recognise Ash in the winter) to try and confirm if the fallen are indeed Ash trees. Apparently, a diamond shape at branch junctions on the trunk should be visible if it is ash dieback.

How sad.

Ash is one of the easiest trees to identify in winter - the black leaf buds are very distinctive.

Depends if the tree survived to offer buds for over winter?

I know nothing substantial about trees. But I suspect buds may be unreliable as an identifier if the tree died before falling over?

I'm sure the weekend chain saw log burner brigade will be along to tidy it up!

Lots of the ash 'keys' may still be clinging on as well. It also has quite distinctive bark, young branches smooth and older trunks quite wrinkled. Paler than other trees.

It is a good wood once properly dried. Burns well without a lot of smoke and ash.

Wet weather means the soil is loose so yes as less strongly anchored down, noticed a lot near us have pulled up at the roots rather than the trunk snapped.

As you say once one the goes those surrounding it have lost their natural wind break.

Is the woodland all a similar age? If so trees of a given species will reach maturity (and the end of their natural life cycle) around the same time.

We’ve had a lot of oak come down over the last 18 months following that really dry summer we had. I’ve always thought it odd as it’s a very wet valley generally and steep sided draining off the barren hilltops so difficult for the ground to dry out. Put it down to long term damage from that dry spell but it’s only an uneducated guess. A few more limbs broken off in the winds over the last couple of weeks. The massive beech trees have all survived though so who knows?

I walked along our local canal at the weekend and noticed about seven trees had come down, several of which were blocking the path. I've been here about seven years I've only seen about two in all of that time.  All uprooted rather than snapped. This is not far from Stalybridge where a surprise mini tornado hit. Also having a very high ridge on one side, the ground is typically waterlogged.

The other thing not mentioned so far is a decline in long term regular inspections of trees for safety. Neither public nor private landowners can afford to do these any more to the extent that they are needed. The end result is that trees that are not obviously damaged or dangerous get ignored until they fall over, whereas previously these would have been felled safely or pruned before they became a problem.

Parts of it are designated as ancient woodland, and parts aren't.

As for tree maturity, it seems pretty consistent throughout the woods. I wouldn't describe the trees as all being very mature, but not young either. Just normal big trees (I'm not a tree expert as you can probably tell)

It could also have wind direction as a factor. Most tree fall in the UK will be from the prominent  SW wind and trees will grow their roots to mitigate against this. However, recent storms, in particular Arwen and Malik were from North, NW or NE directions, which most trees will not have root systems to deal with. That was one of the reasons the devastation in the NE of Scotland looked so like fallen matchsticks and made many conifer forests impassable. Arwen felled many but weakened even more and then a slight change in direction for the next storm, felled loads more.

The other thing not mentioned so far is a decline in long term regular inspections of trees for safety. Neither public nor private landowners can afford to do these any more to the extent that they are needed. 

The local busybodies keep us on our toes with our woods, but we all missed the ancient oak which I used to climb all the time as a kid which just dropped into the road one night. Ash is definitely an issue.

On one of my more recent trips to England I saw a passive aggressive sign on a woodland entrance warning about this (Cranbourne Chase) . Makes a change from snakes.

It makes no snese to spend time and money inspecting trees for safety unless there is heavy human traffic beneath them.

When did we decide that it was someone elses responsibility to keep us safe when we choose to pass or linger under trees?



 

I didn't say we need to inspect all trees!

Those that could fall across busy paths or roads or onto a building, yes. Those in the middle of farmers' fields or in a dense wood with few or no paths, no.

I drove along the A6 between Taddington and Buxton in the Peak at the end of the summer. I passed steep hillsides densely covered in ash. Most were dead or dying but still standing. Most of those within falling distance of the road had been felled.

Even if you regularly inspect trees, some will still just go without warning. I understand that horse chestnuts will often shed massive and previously healthy limbs randomly in summer in what is apparently and imaginatively known as "summer branch break" 😆

I would imagine climate change is playing its part.

There are to many variables and not enough information in the description for anyone to offer a valid opinion.

Ash tree- these seldom fail on the stem or basal area due to Ash dieback, the fungi infects the trees via the leaf and blocks the food and water tubes to and from the leaves. The blockage to the leaf and enevitble decrease in energy production is the cause of the decline in Ash trees. They can fall over, but is likely a secondary pathogen that has been able to capitalise on the weakened condition of the tree which causes this.

I'm not sure why you're getting the dislikes because, as Jenny C said above, trees often fail due to waterlogged ground, and around here I've seen several big trees down that I know were healthy. It's the wet ground due to the sheer number of storms we've had recently that has caused these trees to blow over

Yes, head in sand attitude still common. People on news in the last couple of days beginning to express their feelings linking the frequency of flooding to the changing climate. 

Perhaps bear in mind that it's possible to 'dislike' what someone is saying whilst also agreeing with it.  Everybody on here always interprets a thumbs down as <angry face>, but it could also be <sad face>.

Fair enough......and I understand why its such a difficult topic to discuss. But it's rearing its head quite dramatically. Choices are being taken away from us.

Multiple reasons, wet ground, interlocking roots so when one goes it applies pressure or leverage on the next, not tested from that direction for some time, age, once one goes it allows the wind in to others that have previously been sheltered and less wind hardened. In the main it's a natural process and new trees will grow in the space, however this is on the timescale of big trees, not like us humans expecting results next year. 

And just to add to ExiledScot's answer, you said earlier that most of the trees seem to be of a similar age/maturity. If that's the case you would expect most of them to die within a few years of each other whatever the cause(s)

The weather being too hot/cold/wet/dry/windy is stressful for the natural world (including me!) full stop. We were told to expect more extremes of everything with climate change. Nature needs "normal" weather to recover from the extremes and we do seem to be getting less "normal" weather

I remember hearing about an experiment after the great storm of 87, where there were lots of trees down.

They cleared the fallen wood in some areas and left it in others. The idea being that with less obstruction, more trees and bushes would grow. What they found was that nature likes the fallen trees and so does the wildlife. A dead tree supports a huge ecosystem; from insects to birds, plants and fungi. Who knew nature knows best?

Now, if we could only get rid if the need to wrap new trees in plastic, to stop them getting nibbled...

Edit to add a link:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/15/british-woodlands-30-ye...

There are areas of land which are getting waterlogged - and even flooded - nowadays that never did before. However part of the reason for this must be the flood protection systems themselves.

Take Bridgnorth for example; a narrow gap between two hillsides with a small amount of flat land either side of the river. One side gets flood defences, but not the other. Where does the water go - well pretty obviously it floods the other side roughly twice as deep as before. The same thing applies all the way along the rivers. If you stop the water from going in one place it will find another.

Please note - I'm only talking about PART of the problem, the trouble is, when one group of people - usually with money - shout loudly, their land, which would have had a certain amount of flooding in the past, gets a barrier to keep it dry. Their neighbours, who haven't got the same voice, get flooded worse than before.

Please note - I live (normally) a matter of yards from the River Severn, at present I live much closer, so I do see the problem on a regular basis.

I'm always gobsmacked when they build a new development on a flood plain. It's ok, we've built a proper flood defence barrier/embankment/whatever, your nice new shiny house will be ok.

The clue's in the name "flood plain" you dummy (I don't mean you, I mean the developers, council, people who buy those houses, etc).

Where exactly do they expect flood water to go now. Well funnily enough, as you say, it'll just go somewhere else but it'll be deeper than before. Doh!

The design of flood defences isn't this daft and blind.

There's a lot of work that goes into modelling and designing defences.

The simulations demonstrate that the new flood defences are compensated with new flood compensation areas if needed (basically big holes).

Where exactly is this happening?

To build on a flood plain, you have to demonstrate that there are no other sites suitable for the development that are not within a flood risk zone.

If you can demonstrate that you must build in the flood plain (tricky for houses) then you have to demonstrate that the development is protected for the life of the development and does not increase flood risk elsewhere.

An existing or proposed flood defence could achieve this, but not to the determent of anywhere else. Also, the flood defence would need to work up to a 100 year storm or similar.

Are you sure you're not referring to development that happened 50 years ago?

hmmmmm, https://www.lv.com/home-insurance/new-homes-in-flooding-areas 

think there might be a gap between national planning policy and what developers can easily get away with there

We have a way, it’s called brambles and other prickly scrub. Humans have this nasty habit of removing such pesky growth though because it’s untidy.

I'm quite sceptical about those figures. I'm not clear on how to use the source "Localis analysis of over 16,000 planning applications across England".

I know hard it is to get planning through in flood zones. Can you build it elsewhere? No, it's a train station, it really has to go here.

Unless there's a lot of money changing hands, I can't see what argument a developer would have to get planning approved.

I can imagine getting permission to have a house re-built as you're not changing the risk, but new houses? Something doesn't add up.

I'm going to try and look into this

I think you are spot on with your third point. That and local Authorities don't have the resources to contest claims made by developers (and they are under massive amounts of pressure to permit housing). 

This, the trees with die-back are wide open to collar rot and butt rot which is transmitted through the soil so wet areas are particularly liable. Easy to see since they just fall over and have no real root system left. All of the trees in my wood eventually just keeled over due to this and all showed. die-back or collar rot first

Don't think the trees care. Go back in time these areas always flooded before we straightened rivers, dug ditches, turned damp land into agricultural land etc.  Every time you improve the drainage in one place, you apply more pressure to the next down stream. Fallen dead trees are as much part of the Eco system as living ones. 

But when an area of land has been historically flooded on a regular basis, different species of tree grow there - ones that have a different root system for example. It's when the stretch of land changes from dry to waterlogged (or vice versa) that the current species suffer, and then gradually get replaced with species that can thrive in the new conditions.

Where it's happening on a large scale it will be due to use of The Exception Test in places like Hull, East Anglia, and East London where there is huge demand for housing but hardly any land available outside of Flood Zone 3 .

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/flood-risk-and-coastal-change#the-exception-tes...

"It must be demonstrated that development that has to be in a flood risk area will provide wider sustainability benefits to the community that outweigh flood risk".

Outside of these areas occasionally a site gets through in a flood plain. This is due to the already unequal battle between planners and developers. Terms aren't tightly defined in planning so, in pursuit of short term profit, the developer commissions a report redefining what the flood plain is and sowing doubt. Planners have to presume in favour of development, there is no precautionary principle allowed in planning, so if there is doubt it has to go in the developers favour.

This is what it means when right wing ideologues like Sunak and Starmer say they are going to bulldoze through (already lax) planning regulations.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-starmer-housing-truss...

More and more destruction of our flood plains and wetlands.

The big problem with the exception test is there's no guidance on how big to draw it. In the past I've come up with something that's reasonable and I've never been challenged on it. But, my work is generally infrastructure related where it's a) needed, and b) you can't just put it anywhere so the search areas are pretty small.

Curious to know if developers ever get challenged on it?

If Hull doesn't have any Flood Zone 2 or lower left that's defended, then surely Hull should be considered "full" and developers should concentrate in other counties unless Hull plans some flood defence work.

My suspicious however is most of the 5000 mentioned above are Flood Zone 3 but are protected by flood defences. I personally would support even building in Flood Zone 3b [actual flood plain] if it has suitable protection. For all we know some of the 5000 may even be Flood Zone 2 which is <1/100 year risk without defences. I would support this development in Flood Zone 2 also. It may be that the people compiling the articles on this don't understand what these Flood Zones means. 

I'm just not sure how to confirm if this is true or not, they are not sharing their data.. They just say it's at risk of flooding. What does that mean?

Hull isn't allowed to say we're full, go and build somewhere else. Each local authority has to provide a 5 year supply of deliverable sites to deliver their share of the national household projection plus a buffer.

They have to allocate the sites to meet their 5 year housing supply in their local plan.

The local authority will put out a call for sites to which developers and landowners will put their sites forward. The LA will then go through their Sequential Test to see if they can deliver their housing delivery target outside of Flood Zones but if not then the Exception Test comes in and housing delivery will outweigh flood risk in the overall planning balance.

The people putting the site forward for allocation will have had to look at mitigation for flood risk but at site allocation stage it will be a hand waving exercise with no real detail. The local plan is prepared under far less scrutiny than a planning application but once a site is allocated in the local plan it is too late to prevent development there.

Could be but I wouldn't support this practice. Defending a place from flooding just displaces the flood risk elsewhere, exceedence events are becoming all too frequent, and catastrophic failure is not unheard of. All structures fail eventually, far better to avoid the risk.

Saw that happen once as I was diving back from work a few years ago. And me and a couple of caving mates nearly got killed when a massive pine tree toppled off the edge of a cliff and landed a few feet from where we were stood.  

I think this needs to change in my view.

I was mainly talking about areas that are already protected by defences. But if new defences are needed, then the downstream impact will require flood compensation, so it's managed. And it's simulated to ensure it works as designed.

Maybe, but with adequate maintenance this shouldn't be an issue. I know I'm muddling coastal and river flooding here, but the number of houses in the Netherlands protected by defences must be quite sizable. Putting aside environmental impact on marine life for a second I otherwise don't think they were wrong to do so. 

They can try to offset to a neighbouring area though, so for example part of the Shropshire plan is to take some of the Black Country allocation, although as seems pretty common this is resulting in larger developers taking the council to court. 

Do you know how  the change from Allerdale/Carlisle to Cumberland will have on our current local plan? At least we've have one for the last 15 or so years although I think the current one ends in 2028. 

My experience is that small developers are suffering from planners being over stretched/backlogged. Larger developers have the power to bully, see Wrexham Councillors being threatened with jail time if they didn't adopt the proposed plan. 

You don’t say what kind of trees are falling, could they be Birch?
There is a large wood behind my house which maybe 50% are Birch. Birch is a pioneering species usually planted to provide something whilst oak and beech etc. take hold. They have a lifespan of around 30 years approx. The recent dry summers have killed loads of birch off. I recently had 12 trees removed from my garden which were in a dangerous condition and there are loads down in the wood.

If the downed trees are not birch then I have no idea other than the recent gales. 

I think we're reaching the hard limits of living on a densely crowded island. There's little space left to mitigate for the effects of more building. Build a house in a flood plain and there's not really anywhere available to compensate for the impact. 

There will be lots of flood defences in the Netherlands but the big picture there has been a move away from fighting against water. Instead they have implemented the Room for the River Programme where they have been taking down flood walls in order to give rivers more room to flood safely during high flows. They even demolished houses in central Nijmegen that were in the flood plain.

https://www.wwno.org/coastal-desk/2020-03-10/water-ways-the-dutch-are-givin...

I didn't know about those cases. Shows how it is though, local democracy counts for nothing in the end.

The Allerdale/Copeland/Carlisle Local Plans and policies continue to apply to their respective areas until the new Cumberland Local Plan and policies become adopted (or until those old local plans go out of date). I can't see that they're consulting on the new Cumberland Local Plan yet but they'll be working on it. 

I'm pretty rubbish at identifying trees. Especially in the winter.

Attached are some photos from this morning.

The hollowed out base is pretty common. Think this old fella will be next.

They look like ash going by the trunks

They are Ash yes.