'It's Not a Reservoir; It's Valuable Agricultural Land': Controlled Use of Water and Deliberate Flooding in Lincolnshire. (1st May 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rowling, Jane
• Is Part Of: Environment and history. Volume 29:Number 2(2023)
• Page Start: 261
• Page End: 283
• Publication Date: 2023-05-01
• Subjects: Human ecology -- History -- Periodicals; Nature -- Effect of human beings on -- Periodicals; Human beings -- Effect of environment on -- Periodicals; 304.209
• DOI: 10.3197/096734021X16076828553601
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0967-3407

Abstract

The Lincolnshire lowlands owe their existence to a long-term programme of formal and informal drainage, by which the landscape has been managed since the Roman period. The public bodies that have held responsibility for this drainage, namely the Commissions of Sewers followed by the Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs) from 1930, are often perceived as solely aiming to remove water from the land as quickly as possible. Recent water management planning in Lincolnshire has begun to explore the idea of water retention, but, as this article will show, this is not a new idea. Far from keeping water out at all costs, Lincolnshire's drained, farmed landscape is a porous one, which has benefited from a long history of deliberate, managed flooding and small-scale sacrifice of valuable agricultural land to water. This is a lacuna which exists in both the academic literature, and in the stories people involved in the drainage boards tell about themselves.