Standing on the hills looking out across flat green fields, linked by a network of hedgerows, copses and small settlements, the Somerset Levels looks like quintessential English countryside. But this region’s rivers, drains, waterways and wetlands are integral to the levels’ history – an inhospitable, and at times perilously flooded, watery world, centuries ago only habitable during the summer months. Right now, the levels are experiencing extensive flooding, stretching for miles on all sides of any roads that are still open to vehicles. Communities are trying to cope with a relentlessly wet winter halting transport, closing schools and leaving homes underwater, underpinned by a longer-term cycle of climate and sea-level change. This part of south-west England, much of which is currently under water, used to be known as the “land of the summer people”. Historically, frequent flooding was the main reason for purely seasonal occupation in this area bordered by the Bristol Channel and the Mendip, Quantock and Blackdown Hills. Drier summers provided valuable grazing land and plentiful resources such as fish, peat, wildfowl and …