{"id":2119864,"date":"2026-08-30T07:10:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T04:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2119864"},"modified":"2026-08-30T07:10:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T04:10:39","slug":"why-londons-ground-will-be-slow-to-recover-from-the-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2119864","title":{"rendered":"Why London’s ground will be slow to recover from the drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/2372\/live\/3e95c1c0-9fa8-11f1-b109-879e35c24276.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
All Saints church, Blackheath, surrounded by drought-hit grassland<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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London is still experiencing drought conditions and, despite recent rain, much of the capital’s ground will take time to recover after weeks of record-breaking dry weather.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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About 80% of London sits on clay, which extends to depths of more than 100m (328ft) in some places.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The clay has lost moisture, causing it to shrink and crack. In some cases, this can lead to subsidence, resulting in damage to buildings and homes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sustained rainfall over a prolonged period will be needed for the ground to fully recover, experts say. Rob Higginson, a geotechnical engineer, says it will be a “very slow process” and that “a single downpour is not going to do it”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Aerial<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Parks and green areas across London have dried out owing to the hot weather<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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July was the driest on record for England and Wales, and a hosepipe ban remains in place for Thames Water and Affinity Water customers in London following prolonged dry weather, low rainfall and increased demand for water.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Higginson said that while “putting a hose on the ground will keep your grass growing, it won’t affect the underlying clay at all”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He explained how recent heatwaves had affected clay deep underground.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“If the clay gets warm, it loses volume, and it’s going to go down and contract.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“You get the cracking, but you also get downward movement. If a house is sitting on top of the clay, it will go down with it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said this predominantly affects homes built between the post-war period and the 1980s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Rob<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Rob Higginson, a geotechnical engineer, says London’s clay ground needs prolonged rain<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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However, even when rain does arrive, he said the recovery process would not be straightforward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Higginson said: “The topsoil will absorb a certain amount of it, and then it will go down and sit on the clay layer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Then you’ve got surface runoff, so the excess water will just run off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“What you really need is prolonged rain. It doesn’t have to be intense, just a reasonable amount over a long period of time, so it has time to percolate into the very fine voids in the London clay.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Even when the grass begins to turn green again, the clay beneath may take much longer to recover from the effects of this summer’s drought.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on <\/i>Sounds<\/i> and follow BBC London on <\/i>Facebook<\/i>, <\/i>X<\/i> and <\/i>Instagram<\/i>. Send your story ideas to <\/i>hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cvgy3w2jd43o”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/2372\/live\/3e95c1c0-9fa8-11f1-b109-879e35c24276.jpg”] BBC All Saints church, Blackheath, surrounded by drought-hit grassland London is still experiencing drought conditions and, despite recent rain, much of the capital’s ground will take time to recover after weeks of record-breaking dry weather. About 80% of London sits on clay, which extends to depths of more than 100m (328ft) in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2119864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2119864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2119864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2119864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2119864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}