All the extra heat that we have trapped in the atmosphere over the last few years ensures that sea levels will keep on rising for centuries to come. Even if we stop producing CO2 tomorrow we have as much chance of stopping the sea encroaching as King Canute had 1,000 years ago.

That would be bad enough, but it’s even worse with the warmer air now holding more water vapour – another serious greenhouse gas – so it not only gets warmer, repeating the whole process, but it causes more storms, more rainfall and stronger winds. Some of the recent series of low pressure UK depressions have been at record low figures.

So there’s more water coming up and more water coming down, and we’re in the middle. We will need to get used to it and take steps to reduce the impact and help reduce flooding. It’s quite straightforward, really, as it’s all to do with the way that we treat the dry land.

In Britain 1,000 years ago, all the hillsides and lowlands were covered with trees and they had a significant effect on what happened to the rain after it fell. Less than 15 per cent that falls on woodlands runs off straight into the rivers, and mature trees, deciduous and evergreen, will transpire thousands of gallons straight back into the atmosphere every year.

Rivers can’t cope with the speed of the run-off once the trees are removed and open pasture, and drained peat bogs, ensure that flooding will follow. Neither is it helped in the lowland arable farming areas where the hedges are removed, ditches filled in, fields are enormous, sponge-like vegetable matter in the soil is replaced by chemical fertilisers, and the whole lot compacted by the use of heavy machinery. As a recipe for flooding it can’t be beaten.

We’re not much better in the towns and cities where roofs, roads, car parks, and paved gardens ensure an immediate run-off into the drains, the rivers and then someone’s house. There are recognised ways of reducing this impact and it means insisting on SUDS – that is sustainable urban drainage, and it’s more than just not building on the flood plains.

The restriction on paving over gardens needs enforcing, and all new houses should have at least two connected water butts for roof run-off, as they will store over 100 gallons, to be used later in dry spells. Urban tree planting, community ponds and less grass cutting would slow water getting into rivers, as would insisting that all new car parks are made of permeable material.

Flooding is a timely reminder of the way that we have abused the built and wild landscape.