Climate change, flooding and water management

In this episode my guest is Hannah Cloke, Regius professor of Meteorology and climate science at the University of Reading. Her title is rather special as she is one of the few professors in Britain appointed by the King or Queen. Her specialty is hydrology and flooding and she now appears regularly on TV whenever there isa major flooding issue. I started by noting the very hot summer of 2026 and Hannah noted that the global climate is now very clearly warming up quite rapidly. One consequence of this is that warmer air is able to hold much more moisture and this has been an important contributory cause of both heavy rainfall and flooding in both Britain and continental Europe. The floods in Valencia in 2025 and the major flooding in Germany in 2021 are clear examples, as are the floods in Yorkshire, Cumbria and the Severn. Beyond Europe we are seeing both more and stronger hurricanes and typhoons as warm seas and air encourage stronger storms. In addition there are now big issues with both melting ice and rising sea levels and the melting of Himalayan and Alpine glaciers. The disastrous floods in Nepal caused by glacial collapse in September 2026 highlight this as do the floods in Switzerland caused by the collapse of part of the Birch glacier on the village of Blatten. But shrinking glaciers also mean the possibility of a longer term shortage of water. This is very important in the Himalayas and the Tibean plateau which are the source of many very important rivers in South and South East Asia: the Bramaputra, the Ganges, Indus, Mekong. Irrawaddy and the Yangtze. The lives of billions of people depend on the water from these rivers. Hannah finishes by stressing that we need to be much more careful in our use of water. It is a scarce resource and it could become much scarcer, floods or not.