River Brock, Lancashire

• Case study of a river catchment at a local scale: River Brock, Lancashire
• The River Brock (Figure 1.66) drains an entirely rural catchment. It is 17.8 km long, rising in the hills of the Forest of Bowland. The headwaters drain steep millstone grit hills in the north and carboniferous limestone in the south. There is peat on the high moors while the lower catchment is overlain by boulder clay. The flow is almost completely natural. Myerscough Agricultural College have a licence to abstract a maximum of 45.46 m³ daily with an annual maximum of 16,592.9 m². At present this is being withheld.
• This depends upon the pattern of rainfall, which can be highly variable. Table 1.2 indicates that in 1995 rainfall for the Brock catchment was relatively low. Figure 1.67 shows a lower than average flow all year with a late winter maximum and low flow in the summer. On the other hand, 2012 was a particularly wet year as shown by Table 1.3. See figures on page 50.
• In the area of St Michael's to the north of the River Wyre the Environment Agency constructed a flood storage basin at Catterall for a one-in-fifty-years flood. It has a capacity to store 1.7 million m² of floodwater.
• Embankments were raised and strengthened in the lowland area close to the River Wyre.
• Warnings are issued for one-in-five-years floods and sandbags given out by the local council, which maintains a store of 2,000.
• In the area of St Michael's to the south of the River Wyre there is a 1 in 100 years probability of flooding with warnings and sandbag distribution.
• The River Brock contributes to the flooding of the River Wyre.