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    Impacts of Flooding

    Uploaded by

    Miguel Villaluz
    Floods cause over $40 billion in annual damage worldwide and an average of $8 billion annually in the US. They kill over 100 people per year in the US and millions in China's Yellow River Valley. When floods recede, areas are often covered in mud and contaminated with hazardous materials. Residents can be left without power or clean water, resulting in waterborne disease outbreaks. While flooding nourishes fertile floodplains, human development in vulnerable areas has increased risks. Governments mandate flood insurance and building requirements to reduce risks, and massive engineering projects provide some mitigation, but climate change continues to threaten vulnerable regions.

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    Impacts of Flooding

    Uploaded by

    Miguel Villaluz
    35 views1 page
    Floods cause over $40 billion in annual damage worldwide and an average of $8 billion annually in the US. They kill over 100 people per year in the US and millions in China's Yellow River Valley. When floods recede, areas are often covered in mud and contaminated with hazardous materials. Residents can be left without power or clean water, resulting in waterborne disease outbreaks. While flooding nourishes fertile floodplains, human development in vulnerable areas has increased risks. Governments mandate flood insurance and building requirements to reduce risks, and massive engineering projects provide some mitigation, but climate change continues to threaten vulnerable regions.

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    Flood

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    Floods cause over $40 billion in annual damage worldwide and an average of $8 billion annually in the US. They kill over 100 people per year in the US and millions in China's Yellow River Valley. When floods recede, areas are often covered in mud and contaminated with hazardous materials. Residents can be left without power or clean water, resulting in waterborne disease outbreaks. While flooding nourishes fertile floodplains, human development in vulnerable areas has increased risks. Governments mandate flood insurance and building requirements to reduce risks, and massive engineering projects provide some mitigation, but climate change continues to threaten vulnerable regions.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    35 views1 page

    Impacts of Flooding

    Uploaded by

    Miguel Villaluz
    Floods cause over $40 billion in annual damage worldwide and an average of $8 billion annually in the US. They kill over 100 people per year in the US and millions in China's Yellow River Valley. When floods recede, areas are often covered in mud and contaminated with hazardous materials. Residents can be left without power or clean water, resulting in waterborne disease outbreaks. While flooding nourishes fertile floodplains, human development in vulnerable areas has increased risks. Governments mandate flood insurance and building requirements to reduce risks, and massive engineering projects provide some mitigation, but climate change continues to threaten vulnerable regions.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    Impacts of flooding

    Floods cause more than $40 billion in damage worldwide annually, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
    In the U.S., losses average close to $8 billion a year. Death tolls have increased in recent decades to more than 100 people a year. In China's
    Yellow River Valley some of the world's worst floods have killed millions of people.

    When floodwaters recede, affected areas are often blanketed in silt and mud. The water and landscape can be contaminated with hazardous
    materials such as sharp debris, pesticides, fuel, and untreated sewage. Potentially dangerous mold blooms can quickly overwhelm water-soaked
    structures.

    Residents of flooded areas can be left without power and clean drinking water, leading to outbreaks of deadly waterborne diseases like typhoid,
    hepatitis A, and cholera. (Learn here about flood preparation and safety tips.)

    Flood prevention

    Flooding, particularly in river floodplains, is as natural as rain and has been occurring for millions of years. Famously fertile floodplains such as
    the Mississippi Valley, the Nile River Valley in Egypt, and the Tigris-Euphrates in the Middle East have supported agriculture for millennia
    because annual flooding has left tons of nutrient-rich silt deposits behind. Humans have increased the risk of death and damage by increasingly
    building homes, businesses, and infrastructure in vulnerable floodplains.

    To try to mitigate the risk, many governments mandate that residents of flood-prone areas purchase flood insurance and set construction
    requirements aimed at making buildings more flood resistant—with varying degrees of success.

    Massive efforts to mitigate and redirect inevitable floods have resulted in some of the most ambitious engineering efforts ever seen, including
    New Orleans's extensive levee system and massive dikes and dams in the Netherlands. Such efforts continue today as climate change continues to
    put pressure on vulnerable areas. Some flood-prone cities in the U.S. are even going beyond federal estimates and setting higher local standards
    for protection.

    According to Keith Koralewski of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, "the monthly high for May 2019 exceeded the previous monthly
    high set in May of 1986," and the current lake levels are above the monthly record high for June, though the Army Corps of Engineers won't
    know until the end of the month whether the record for June will be broken.

    The high lake levels and heavy rain have combined to bring flooding and high water to parts of Middle Bass Island, leaving yards underwater and
    roads submerged.

    Floods are some of the most destructive natural disasters people must endure. Often lasting
    longer and impacting larger areas, floods tend to be much more costly than other events, both in
    financial terms and lost lives. Flooding destroys homes and property, cripples transportation and
    leaves a host of potential diseases in its wake. Rapidly moving flood waters also scour away
    banks and shorelines, then deposit huge amounts of the debris onto surrounding areas. The clean-
    up process and costs after a flood are typically as much, if not more, than the costs of the
    physical damages alone. The economic fallout from even a minor flood often lasts several years.

    Flooding is natural for all bodies of water, however, modern expansion alters the landscape and
    encroaches on areas that were once natural watersheds. This, along with the fact that modern
    construction does not absorb run-off, results in more frequent, and more costly, flooding. While
    levees and modern engineering help reduce the effects of flooding, there is no way to entirely
    prevent floods.

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