Rainfall sparks call for studies
INTENSE rainfall over the past few years, which created havoc in Kin Kin, Pomona, Cooran and Cooroy, has highlighted the need for more flood studies.
A town-planning expert has said the probability of recent rain events at Cooroy and Pomona were "really extraordinary" and they could have been one in 800 rain events.
"That's very unusual rainfall," Paul Summers told a Noosa Resident and Ratepayers Association public forum recently.
"The intensity of the rainfall over the last three or four years (has) been quite extraordinary. It may not be true, but it's starting to bear out the climate change circumstances," he said.
"The severity has increased, but it's a fact that no government, no council can protect you from every type of event that can occur."
Mr Summers said the Flood Inquiry Report validated the work that had already been done on Noosa's catchment, starting in 1992 with the Noosa Council's flood study.
He said that because of the topography of areas like Pomona and Kin Kin, such studies were difficult to do and very costly.
A Tewantin resident at the forum said five houses near the local golf club had flooded in recent heavy rains in areas that had never been inundated before.
He believed a major reason was the clogging up of local creeks that had turned into rivers because natural material like cabbage palm fronds had formed dams.
