Ah I didn't think of the risk of the orchard trees all being swept up into a missile to hurl at bridges. Maybe the answer isn't to try to widen the river, but instead split it. Allow it to fork off and have multiple channels. Maybe even breaking off streams upriver to prevent the river rising so much.

Although I guess the point of the article is that we shouldn't mess with the river so much 😅

[–] TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nz 3 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah I spent a day helping clear up at an orchard after Gabrielle and there was a whole field where some younger trees were all just gone. I think what had happened in a lot of places was debris from upstream just washed through at velocity and broke everything above ground level away then pushed it down until it hit a barrier it couldn't get over or around.

And in some places, where that barrier was a bridge the weight of water & debris was enough to wash that away too.