Are floods getting worse? talk by disaster historian

Last year, the UK’s Environment Agency issuing a record number of flood warnings, while also in the last few years Pakistan has had its worst monsoon floods in eight decades, Thailand suffered one of the costliest inundations in history, Colombia and Brazil experienced the severest in living memory, and Australia’s prime minister declared the Queensland floods perhaps the worst natural disaster ‘in the history of our nation’.

London disaster historian John Withington will be examining whether floods are getting worse in a free talk.

He reveals that floods are the natural disasters humans are most likely to experience, and that some of the most ambitious structures we have ever built have been put up to defend us against them.

He will also tell of how stories like Noah’s ark, about an apocalyptic flood which almost wipes out humanity, feature in dozens of religions all over the world. Floods caused by rain, melting snow, storms, tsunamis, tides, the failures of dykes or dams, or deliberate act of war all feature.

The talk will also look at the way floods have been portrayed in films, literature and art.

John Withington has written six books on the history of disasters including London's Disasters: from Boudicca to the Banking Crisis, Flood: Nature and Culture, and A Disastrous History of the World.