A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods

by Margaret Cook

When floods devastated South East Queensland in 2011, who was to blame? Despite the inherent risk of living on a floodplain, most residents had pinned their hopes on Wivenhoe Dam to protect them, and when it failed to do so, dam operators were blamed for the scale of the catastrophic events that followed. A River with a City Problem is a compelling history of floods in the Brisbane River catchment, especially those in 1893, 1974 and 2011. Extensively researched, it highlights the force of nature, the vagaries of politics and the power of community. With many river cities facing urban development challenges, Cook makes a convincing argument for what must change to prevent further tragedy.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Australia

232 pages, Paperback

Published September 3, 2019

Reviews

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well researched and well written account of the development of my city and the relationship it has to the river that flows through its heart.

I have witnessed two (EDIT: now THREE) major floods in Brisbane and each time, the various levels of government have assured us that the Somerset Dam and the mighty Wivenhoe dam would save us. Well they didn't, but fear not, they will next time. What? Of course they won't, but that's what the large real estate companies (who fund political parties) want us to believe. They want to continue to sell us houses and develop land that is on the flood plain. Our blind reliance on technological solutions to flooding (such as dams) is misplaced. Just ask the people of New Orleans. Nature will always win.

For us in Brisbane, the shame is greater, because the aborigines who lived here for thousands of years before us, adapted quite nicely to the regular flooding. And they told us so. But our stupid, pompous founders ignored them of course. "We know better. We're superior beings us English you know."

I think Margaret Cook's answer, (that we rely on non-technical solutions such as moving off the flood plain or building houses higher) is admirable, but I just don't see it happening. (EDIT: After the 2022 flood, houses are being raised and so are dam walls. The cynic in me believes a global-warming- fuelled Mother
Nature will still win.) Maybe after a few more devastating floods, we might just learn our lesson though.

This is a great book and should be required reading for any person living near a major river.

[Erin Franklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - don’t let my rating deter you, this is a very well-researched and important book.

It was maybe not the best choice to start the year out with though because it’s taken me 11 days to read. The subject matter is definitely interesting to me, but I did often find the book a little dry (no pun intended) and, as a result, didn’t find myself prioritising reading or spending particularly long sessions when I did.

I would recommend it to anyone interested in (post-colonisation) Brisbane history - political and social in particular.

(It was weird to see quotes from The Courier-Mail that seemed somewhat measured and reasonable and not 100% serving conservative, corporate interests - just btw)

[Alice-Elizabeth (Prolific Reader Alice) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read on Scribd!

It’s a decade ago since the devastating floods to rock south-east Queensland, but that hasn’t been the only occurrence of extreme weather. Margaret’s research into the events of the 1800s is fascinating to read but also upsetting and shocking. So many people lost their lives, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage and the aftermath of construction and re-building homes and businesses on higher ground and back again on floodplains. I’m not from Australia myself however I live within a 45 minute drive away of an area prone to flooding which a few years back caused massive amounts of destruction. Really good read!

Added to my Wishlist for 2021.

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[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, accessible environmental history that is especially timely reading given the recent floods in Queensland.

[Emily Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have least expected the only book to make me cry this year to be a PhD about Brisbane’s river, but here we are. Somehow this one just captivated me like nothing else. I found it a thought provoking, harrowing and alarming recount of the city’s 3 major flood events. I can’t believe how much of an enormous shame it is that the state and local governments will continue to not care about the future of Brisbane, even as we head into a La Nina season once again. Gets 4 stars instead of 5 because of the slightly dry, essay like writing style.

[Tamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave up on this with about a quarter to go. I chose it because of (a) the nice cover (can never resist a good cover), and (b) because I wanted to learn more about the history of our river, and the people who've settled around it, and its impact on them. I feel like this would help me understand how it works & why it acts as it does, and to be prepared in the future for things like floods.
When I read it, though, I was disappointed. It was only partly what it claimed to be - the above information. The useful content was overwhelmed by the author's extreme bias and negativity throughout. Basically, everyone who made decisions about, settled near, and did anything connected with the river was stupid, uninformed, ignorant, refused to see the facts or listen to the people who knew better, and the government was concerned only and ever about making money/the region's economy, and using 'mechanistic' or 'technocratic' solutions to tame the river.
However all the way through, the author included the words and stories of many people who were the opposite of the biased view she presents otherwise (as above) - they saw the signs of flooding, understood the climate, worked with the land, warned others, and worked hard to prepare and have foresight. These inclusions belie the apparent stupidity/selfishness/blinkered 19th-century view/obsession with local economies that everyone exhibited. Obviously, not everyone did - but the author still reiterates this view over and over, exhaustively. It's a very depressing, let alone just very annoying, book to read due to this. Her aim seems not to have been to give a clear, unbiased interpretation of events and facts, like a historian is professionally expected to do, but to demonstrate that the British colonists, and everyone after them, were all the things above, and have just continually made a mess of it all.
So I was disappointed, because it was so hard to read - the information and my enjoyment and learning was constantly interrupted by these negative, biased pronouncements and evaluations. I kept going as long as I could, because I really wanted to learn something - and I did learn some things. But learning what I aimed to from the outset will have to wait for another, less-biased (or at least less in-your-face biased) and negative appraisal; one that is balanced and informative without being overbearing. As an example, I'm currently reading a book about Europe's 'Little Ice Age' which is just those last things. Interesting, informative, well-written, and an assessment of the situation that doesn't bias itself to any particular interpretation, but gives readers the info we need and leaves us to make our own judgements.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars cannot reflect the importance of this book for every Queenslander. Every local councillor and state MP should be forced to read it! I needed a long walk (beside my favourite and currently 'compliant' creek) to disperse the anger and frustration this book lays bare - generations of ignorance, short memories, selfish blame games and deliberate deflection of hard truths in favour of short term financial and political gains. Grrrr!

[Aaron Wiggan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t like developers before, now I like them even less…

[Jean Yates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margaret Cook's book is not just about floods, but about all environmental disasters and the impact they have on people. The history is meticulously researched, yet brought to life by the colourful anecdotes and personal stories that are woven throughout. While we are happy to take advantage of the economic, social and aesthetic benefits of living along the river, when it floods (which it will inevitably do no matter how much man tries to control it), we all seek someone to blame. This book examines the impact of humans on the environment and the natural order, providing a very topical discussion in light of the current environmental climate.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

'A River with a City Problem', could be any river in the world - a story of man's attempts to control nature and how this is disastrous for both man and nature. This book makes you consider all our interactions with the natural environment and why perhaps this is not going so well for us or nature. But its not too late, there are things we can do to live together more harmoniously, 'A River with a City Problem' explores many of these solutions. This book is a thought provoking read that everyone (especially those in power) should get their hands on.

[Steve Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent - enjoyed! This is a must read for every real estate person in Brisbane.

[Toni Kely-Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Born and raised in South-East Queensland this book appealed to me not only as a history of the region but also to understand the legacies of the major floods in Ipswich and Brisbane in 1893, 1974 and 2011. And these are the major ones! These don't cover the countless floods I have seen in my lifetime that aren't as catastrophic as these were, but still bring front of mind the reality of building and living on a flood plain.

I haven't been personally impacted by any of these floods as when I grew up in Ipswich and now live in Brisbane, checking flood impacts as always been front and centre of my (and my parents and grandparents) mind when renting or purchasing a home. This book puts forward the argument that lack of political courage and the influence of developers and other lobbyists with an economic stake have led to development on the floodplain, not only of housing and businesses but of the Ipswich and Brisbane CBDs themselves.

As far back as 1800's when Brisbane was growing there were those who said the CBD needed to be built back from the river and the land along the river reserved as public land for parks, etc. but these were in the minority. Rather than working with the river's natural state, we have tried to tame it through engineering and built dams to reduce flood levels.

Australia is a land with extreme weather events, and we know we will have floods again, however there are too many invested interests, it isn't politically viable, and we can't turn back time to stop development on the river.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of the three major floods – 1893, 1974 and 2011 – from ecological, geographical and human perspectives. More importantly, though, it looks at the failure of policy as successive governments of both persuasions lacked the courage to say ‘enough!’ and prevent development on the floodplain.
...By the time the 2011 floods came, even though the water level itself was lower than earlier floods, the financial implications were disastrous because of the encouragement of higher-density development on the floodplain. She discusses the role of Newscorp media after this flood, most particularly the Australian, in attacking the science behind the decision to release dam water to save the dam, and blaming individuals rather than opening up a broader analysis of the systems that had led to such disastrous results.
...Her conclusion, titled "The Floods Will Come Again" is a statement of fact, rather than a prognostication of doom. Perhaps then the political courage might be found to acknowledge that the city itself is the problem, rather than the river.  As the title says, it is a river with a city problem, and not the other way round.

For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2019/11/26/...

[Guy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Neither a well-argued polemic nor an objective history, this is a book to cherry-pick. I didn't read all of it.

The floods make interesting reading. It's disaster porn, yes, but also she writes them with anecdotes about people. Also, I already know something of the floods, and so have knowledge for her stories build on.

She describes the politics between the floods with detail, not with a narrative. In the Local Rag newspaper, reader Fred / Wilma or columnist Dino, wrote that Nature would have Her Way, and Structures on Floodplains would succumb to Her Wrath. And in such-and-such a year, the whatsit government commissioned someone from somewhere to write a report, which was expensive / inconvenient / forgotten. And again.

Ho-hum, if you can't remember the significance of the names in a sentence, or the next sentence, or the one after, pretty soon you're yawning and skimming.

She has great respect for indigenous knowledge, and mentions the science of hydrology frequently, but human nature has its laws too. Developers will find a way to slide profitable plans through government regulations. It's their job, and they're good at it.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good history of settlement on the Brisbane River, and the process of institutional self-delusion around building on the floodplain. It is quite reasonably frustrated to see people building repeatedly on flood-prone land while behaving like it isn’t, and misunderstanding what dams can do to mitigate, but not prevent, floods. Its rhetoric on this as “relying on technocratic solutions” is surely misplaced, though, as it quotes engineers and other experts throughout who clearly state what dams are going to achieve, and suggest other complementary measures. Actual technocrats could at least read a technical report ...

Brisbane’s approach has been to pay for half measures and then act shocked when they don’t do the job, again and again. Advocating a managed retreat from the most at risk properties, based on real data and carefully constructed models, would have made more sense than the handwaving against “technocracy” in general.

That said, I learnt a lot of great detail on Brisbane floods and Brisbane delusions I would never have found elsewhere. It’s a good read.

[Fltaaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-written and engaging book that investigates how huge parts of Brisbane, one of Australia's biggest cities, were built on land that was known to be dangerously flooded. It covers the engineering attempts to reduce flooding and the failure of successive state and local governments to enact effective planning laws. It also touches on the failure of the media and public figures, in both 1893 to 2011, to accurately describe how and why flooding occurs, with each flood being accompanied by various mistruths and scapegoats.
I think the greatest value of this book is in drawing together over 150 years of history and critically analysing what happened. Very few engineering assessments, or planning schemes, or newspaper articles will ever cover a fraction of the full history, and so they risk re-committing the mistakes of the past.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject matter is interesting and I think there was real potential here, but this is not an engaging read. It was very evidently a PhD project transitioned into a mainstream publication and there was a lot more that could have been done to turn this into an actual narrative and not just a dry factual account full of repetition and jargon and kind of confusing data tables.

The problem with PhD theses is that their writers have been mired so deep in academia that their perspective on what non-specialised narrative nonfiction looks like is irrevocably skewed. I'm certain the author considers this a very broad-stroke overview of her topic, but to the layman it is still largely impenetrable.

[Thom Gibney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margaret Cook gives an enthralling account of the history of Floods in the Greater Brisbane region. Not only does Cook provide a meticulously-researched account of floods in Southeast QLD including first-hand accounts and unpacking the inner-workings of key decision makers in times of crisis. Cook also exposes the ineptitude of Government and corruption by the Land Development industry (buoyed by the Bjelke-Peterson Government, himself a prominent land developer) that have locked Brisbane into a fatalistic path dependency of development within the floodplains.I look forward to the future additions in Margaret Cook's environmental history works.

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. It reads like a novel and is pack full of details that allow you to understand the ongoing tension between nature and development. It will remain relevant for decades to come as the drought / flood cycle continues and our growing city evolves. There is plenty we would be wise to do in order to live in harmony with our wonderful river - for the environment but also for our economic success. A must-read for anyone who lives in our city - particularly those who impact town planning and development.

[Bobbie Foot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this fascinating history of floods and the people of Brisbane’s relationship with the river. I really liked the inclusion of indigenous history and perspectives- it was a great beginning and place to end.

A couple of chapters near the start were a bit dense with technical language and acronyms that I found hard to keep track of, but this didn’t diminish my overall enjoyment.

I have been enthusiastically expounding about floods to everyone I know since I read it- I am sure they would rather just read it!

[Melina · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging enough read to keep going, though not one to keep me awake reading. It's missing elements which would make it a great history book - it frustratingly jumps back and forward in time at different points, gets mired in details at other times and pounds the message into the reader instead of building to it. However, if a few people learn from the message (don't build on the floodplain!) that might be helpful

[Elle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful and illuminating. I learned a lot about my own city's history, as well as history that happened around me. Memories of listening to adult family conversations about floods and politics i heard as a child in the 80s were sparked with reading. While hydrological history can be heavy and fact-laden this book was really enjoyable to read and illuminating and thought provoking. I really enjoyed this book and will recommend to all who'll let me. I see my city differently now.

[Bec · Rating 4 out of 5]

"New settlers to Australia brought British climatic knowledge as baggage"

Living in Brisbane during the February 2022 floods, this book gives me no hope for the future, people still believe that the 2011 floods were caused by dam mismanagement, people still misunderstand what a 1 in 100 year flood is and the government is still allowing building on areas that are known to flood with only recommendations not requirements for developers.

[Otto Gread · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite good, somewhat (and maybe depressingly) repetitve, the last chapter gives a overview of the whole story.
The answer of moving off of the flood plain was touted throughout the book and it's seems right but to what degree? There isn't any deep analysis of that question (economically?). But the book is thorough in its history.

[Fernanda Gallegos Poch · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 estrellas.

Es un libro hermoso, sobre todo si uno conoce un poco el contexto de Brisbane y le gusta la hidraulica. Que tremendos somos como civilización... que a veces no entendemos que la naturaleza no se controla, sino que tenemos que aprender a compartir con ella el espacio en el que vivimos.

[Michael Spicer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is unbelievable to think that the good people of Brisbane and their elected Council think that they can tame Nature.

Dr. Cook makes a 'dry' subject like flooding, interesting and intriguing.

Everyone on Brisbane City Council should have this book as mandatory reading.

[Joel Batham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damning portrait of qld political culture. Some post-2011 quotes from real estate agents demonstrating how it’s impossible to tell if someone in the property sector is cartoonishly evil or unbelievably dim

[Pam Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent account and analysis of the 1893, 1974 and 2011 Brisbane and Ipswich floods. Should be compulsory reading for all local, state and federal politicians in SEQ. Would also be a good book for high school students to help them understand the geography of our area.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

At times reading like a thriller this account of floods on the Brisbane River is tense and pacy reading. It shows what happens when politics and profit are valued more highly than environmental considerations. It shows the danger of trusting incorrect information.

[Dom Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a terrific analysis of the results of what has been allowed/encouraged in the interests of property development on flood plains of Brisbane and Ipswich in south east Queensland.
Better than any book I’ve written