Читать книгу Taming the Flood: Rivers, Wetlands and the Centuries-Old Battle Against Flooding - Jeremy Purseglove - Страница 29

In 1977 the Ministry of Agriculture estimated that 6.4 million acres of agricultural land in England and Wales needed drainage.¹ This, approximately one-fifth of the nation’s farmland, was expected to keep engineers in the newly formed water authorities fully occupied until well into the next century. In 1980–1, a fairly typical year, the grant from the Ministry of Agriculture for land-drainage schemes, including some urban work, amounted to about £30.5 million, of which £23.7 million was allocated to the water authorities, while the rest went to internal drainage boards and local authorities.² In that year it is estimated that the water authorities spent around £40 million on capital drainage schemes for agriculture. In addition, all water authorities spent large sums on routine river maintenance on farmland; and still more money was spent by the Ministry of Agriculture in contributing between 30 and 70 per cent of the cost of farmers’ field drainage, designed to pick up the benefits of lowering the water level, a result of river engineering schemes.