The consequences of floods, both negative and positive, vary greatly depending on their location, duration, depth and speed, as well as the vulnerability and value of the affected natural and constructed environments.
Floods impact both individuals and communities, and have social, economic, and environmental consequences Table 1. As most people are well aware, the immediate impacts of flooding include loss of human life, damage to property, destruction of crops, loss of livestock, and deterioration of health conditions owing to waterborne diseases. As communication links and infrastructure such as power plants, roads and bridges are damaged and disrupted, some economic activities may come to a standstill, people are forced to leave their homes and normal life is disrupted.
Similarly, disruption to industry can lead to loss of livelihoods. Damage to infrastructure also causes long-term impacts, such as disruptions to supplies of clean water, wastewater treatment, electricity, transport, communication, education and health care. Loss of livelihoods, reduction in purchasing power and loss of land value in the floodplains can leave communities economically vulnerable.
Floods can also traumatise victims and their families for long periods of time. The loss of loved ones has deep impacts, especially on children. Displacement from one's home, loss of property and disruption to business and social affairs can cause continuing stress. For some people the psychological impacts can be long lasting. Flooding in key agricultural production areas can lead to widespread damage to crops and fencing and loss of livestock. Crop losses through rain damage, waterlogged soils, and delays in harvesting are further intensified by transport problems due to flooded roads and damaged infrastructure.
The flow-on effects of reduced agricultural production can often impact well outside the production area as food prices increase due to shortages in supply. On the other hand, flood events can result in long-term benefits to agricultural production by recharging water resource storages, especially in drier, inland areas, and by rejuvenating soil fertility by silt deposition. Damage to public infrastructure affects a far greater proportion of the population than those whose homes or businesses are directly inundated by the flood.
Many animals die during a flood because their habitats have been destroyed. Pests and wild animals such as snakes may migrate to densely populated areas and cause much havoc. In such cases, you may need a pro exterminator to get rid of those animals. Effect of flooding on property value can cause real estate in an area to plummet.
In cities and residential areas, the first thing that people look for is safe disaster free areas which are not near earthquake zones or prone to flooding. There are zones or areas that are more susceptible to flooding because of poor town planning or proximity to bodies of water. People may be compelled to leave a place if there is a regular occurrence of devastating floods in an area. There can be a mass migration to higher or safer areas. People who have been constantly devastated by disasters such as floods may be moved to abandon their homes and roots entirely to plan out better futures in a place away from floods.
Often, people move to the cities which cause much congestion in these areas and further economic challenges. The most severe consequences of flooding are on the economy. During a flood, everything stops including business and economic processes. Floods destroy food sources and transportation routes. A country that is regularly experiencing floods is expending money on recovery instead of growth and development. Livelihoods are likewise disrupted and businesses will be unwilling to invest in disaster-prone areas.
The development of these areas will be at a standstill. After a big flood or any other kind of disaster, communities take some actions to ensure people safety and decrease the chance of property or life loss during the next natural disaster.
Many experts point to climate change as one of the reasons behind the extremes in weather conditions. Damages caused by flooding are many and they affect both economically powerful and struggling nations. The initiative towards taking better care of the environment can halt the devastation of weather-related disasters. There should be a concerted effort by governments to decrease global warming by improving methods in combatting pollution and degradation of the environment.
It is important that a town has a good layout to prevent possible structural problems. This lists the logos of programs or partners of NG Education which have provided or contributed the content on this page. Leveled by.
Tuesday, September 14, It is hardly surprising that rivers have been an important part of human history: They provide food, freshwater, and fertile land for growing crops. While water is essential to life, it can be a destructive force too. When rivers flood, the effects can be catastrophic. Flooding is one of the most common types of natural disaster, and the results are often fatal. The Central China flood of , for example, was one of the worst flooding events in recorded history.
The Yangtze and Huai rivers broke their banks, likely killing as many as several million people. The aftermath was devastating; deadly waterborne diseases like dysentery and cholera spread quickly, and those who survived faced the threat of starvation.
We are used to hearing about the human cost of flooding, but events like this have a big impact on the natural world too, and the effects are not always negative. In fact, some ecosystems rely on seasonal flooding to drive ecological processes. Floods Can Harm Wildlife Flooding can have a negative effect on wildlife, causing drowning, disease proliferation, and habitat destruction. In , hundreds of animals, including many vulnerable one-horned rhino Rhinoceros unicornis , were killed in floods that swamped Kaziranga National Park in the Indian state of Assam.
Unpredictable floods can be harmful even to aquatic life. For example, fish can be displaced and their nests destroyed.
Floods Cause Sedimentation and Erosion Floodwaters can also alter the landscape, for instance, by eroding riverbanks and causing them to collapse. As floodwaters carry material from the eroded banks, sediment becomes suspended in the water, which can degrade water quality and lead to harmful blooms of algae.
Suspended sediment eventually settles out of the water in a process called sedimentation, which can clog riverbeds and streams, smother aquatic organisms, and destroy habitats.
Erosion and sedimentation have a more negative impact on ecosystems that are already degraded or heavily modified. Floods Carry Contamination Floodwater can be contaminated with pollutants such as agricultural pesticides, industrial chemicals, debris, and sewage. A more low-tech option: Introduce yourself to your prospective neighbors and ask them about flooding in the area. For repeatedly flooded homes, relocation may be the best option.
But a wide array of measures exist to prevent or reduce flood damage to structures when relocation is not possible. In areas where flooding is a regular occurrence, more drastic retrofits may include raising the entire structure of a house, wet floodproofing which purposely allows water to flow into a structure and then back out , and dry floodproofing the application of coatings and other sealing materials to walls to prevent floodwaters from entering a home.
Administered by FEMA, the National Flood Insurance Program was created by Congress in to provide affordable flood insurance to homeowners, renters, and business owners. It is available in communities that adopt and enforce floodplain management ordinances and building requirements aimed at reducing flood risks.
The NFIP provides critical aid to victims recovering from a flood disaster, but it also incentivizes the rebuilding of homes in flood-prone areas often multiple times by providing little assistance to those who wish to move to higher ground. Indeed, it is estimated that more than 30, U. This constant cycle of post-flood rebuilding can lock people into a costly and dangerous situation.
It also wastes billions of dollars, which in turn threatens the NFIP itself. Mitigating potential loss from future floods requires knowing where floods are most apt to occur.
NFIP relies on these maps to assess flood risk, determine insurance rates, and establish floodplain management standards. When Hurricane Sandy hit in , for example, many of the maps for areas that were flooded had not been updated in nearly 30 years. The flooding that resulted from the storm covered an area 65 percent larger than the flood-vulnerable area identified by FEMA. Keeping flood maps up to date is critical because flood risks change as land use and other factors change.
Floods, for example, become a greater risk when more pavement and other impervious surfaces are built over an area. Instead, they rely on historical data to determine future flood hazard projections. Moderate- to low-risk areas called non-special flood hazard areas are regions with less flood potential though properties in these areas still account for more than 20 percent of NFIP claims.
High-risk areas also known as special flood hazard areas —or simply floodplains are regions with a 1 percent 1 in chance of being inundated by river or stream floodwaters of a certain magnitude in any given year.
The term year flood refers to this, not a flood expected to occur just once every hundred years. But even a 1 in chance of flooding each year equates to about a 1 in 5 chance a home will flood at some point over the life of a year mortgage. But we can take steps to lessen their devastation. The latter, scrapped by President Trump in , included, among other things, commonsense measures such as requiring FEMA to rebuild flood-damaged public infrastructure police stations, schools, hospitals, and the like to be safer and stronger than their pre-flood incarnations.
A poll showed that the vast majority of Americans support such flood-smart federal measures—and for good reason. Moreover, such measures increase the odds that millions more Americans will stay safe—and dry. Finally, curbing climate change is an important way to avert some of the worst scenarios for sea level rise and escalating flood risks. As the IPCC has made explicitly clear , limiting global average temperature rise to within 1.
And only ambitious climate action can make that happen. In images both beautiful and disturbing, photographer Kadir van Lohuizen documents how sea level rise is altering coastlines—and lives—around the world.
The Quinault Indian Nation is one of several Pacific Northwest tribes planning for relocation, among many other climate adaptation strategies. The planet is sending us an unmistakable signal that we need to wake up and take real action to combat the climate crisis.
And this is the decade we need to do it.
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