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Where I live, in South-West England, the rivers break their banks each winter. This is why the county has been called for many centuries Somerset - the Settlement of the Summer People. During winter, in generations past, these low lands were uninhabitable. They were always too sodden to sustain human habitation. In recent centuries technology has been introduced to subdue and shape this natural process of annual inundation, and the floods have been held back for a while. But now humankindâ€s attempts to control nature have, once again, been giving way to larger forces. To some people these annual floods represent devastation, while others welcome them as representing a new level of nature's creativity. These winter floods bring amazing diversity with them â€" diversity of species and environment, and also extraordinary visual diversity.