Flooding is a phenomenon where a build-up of excessive water overwhelms the area’s capability to drain. Floods can be categorized into four types: flash flood, coastal flood, urban flood, fluvial flood, and pluvial flood. Flash flooding is the flooding caused by a sudden and rapid inflow of water overwhelming the area’s drainage capability. Coastal flooding is when the seawater submerges the local area, it can occur when the sea level rises due to a severe storm or tide change. Urban flooding is the flooding where city drains are unable to fully accommodate the stormwater and begins to overflow into the streets. And finally, fluvial flooding is the flooding where heavy rainfall causes a body of water to rise and overflow temporarily. With a better understanding of what floods are, how exactly is this related to climate change?
Climate change has multiple effects throughout the globe; a few examples would be tropical storms becoming more common and severe due to the increase in surface temperature or the increase in precipitation due to increased evaporation activity with warmer waters (EPA 2021). Both examples are potential reasons as to how flooding will be significantly impacted due to climate change. Flooding usually occurs due to heavy downpours or a storm surge. Storm surge is the temporary rise in sea level during a severe tropical storm like hurricanes. One of the effects of climate change is the warming of the ocean waters, this as a result creates a favorable environment increasing the likelihood of tropical storms to form and boosting their intensity. With tropical storms becoming bigger and more apparent, storm surges will also become more severe and common along with it.
In addition to warmer surface temperatures causing more storms, the warmer waters will also promote an increase in evaporation activity. As surface temperature increases, the warm waters will begin to transition into their respective gaseous form more quickly. The accumulation of water vapor in the sky will continue to grow much more rapidly before they start condensing into water droplets and falls as rain (National Geographic 2019). As such, the further increase in surface temperature will also increase both the occurrence and intensity of rain (ClimateCentral 2019). Ultimately, the increase in precipitation will also directly increase the amount of flooding throughout the world.
Knowing that flooding will become much worse, what can humans do about it? There are many methods humans can adapt to flooding. Some of the possibilities may include the implementation of larger storm drains, constructing buildings at higher elevations or on a slope, or raising buildings above the ground. After Hurricane Sandy, New York City started developing countermeasures to help combat the intense flooding they experienced. Sixty-nine thousand residential units were ruined from the record high 13-feet tall flood (Spectrum News 2021). Learning from that experience, New York City is constructing new buildings and infrastructure higher to help alleviate flooding damage (Forbes 2021). Throughout the coastline of New York City, homes are being rebuilt on elevated structures or building well above the floodplains. This will help homeowners flood-proof their homes for shallow flooding while minimizing the damage for the occasional severe flooding. In addition, in some parts of the city, the streets and roads are being elevated well above the floodplain (Forbes 2021). This will enable the community to resume their day-to-day lives immediately after a severe tropical storm by greatly lessening flooding damage and impact. As such, cities like New York City are implementing countermeasures to help combat extreme flooding by elevating homes, streets, and roads several feet above the floodplain.
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Work Cited Page
Bisnow. “Five Years After Hurricane Sandy, New York City Has Mostly Small Fixes To Show.” Forbes, 31 Oct. 2017, www.forbes.com/sites/bisnow/2017/10/31/five-years-after-sandy-nyc-has-mostly-small-fixes-to-show-since-storm/?sh=3cde5b7b7d78.
“Climate Change Indicators: Heavy Precipitation.” US EPA, 21 July 2021, www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heavy-precipitation#:%7E:text=Climate%20change%20can%20affect%20the,heavier%20rain%20and%20snow%20storms.
National Geographic Society. “Precipitation.” National Geographic Society, 8 Aug. 2019, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/precipitation.
“POURING IT ON: How Climate Change Intensifies Heavy Rain Events.” Climate Central, 15 May 2019, www.climatecentral.org/news/report-pouring-it-on-climate-change-intensifies-heavy-rain-events.
One Response
I like that you gave a description of the different types of floods and how they affect an area. I like the research you have done to further prove that with climate change, flooding becomes more prominent and severe. I would like to further add the impacts of floods. The actual flood itself is the least of people’s worries when a flooding occurs. As we know, floods tend to cause damages to a communities’ wellbeing, infrastructure, and businesses. The National Flood Insurance Program paid an average of $2.9 billion dollars per year to cover flood-related losses (Denchak 2021). One can only imagine how much this number can go up due to climate change. In addition, floods can carry sewage waters and toxic chemicals which can contaminate the drinking water supplies of the affected area. You can see how a flood can really take a toll on someone in that situation.
Another city that was hit hard by a flood was New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina caused 80% of New Orleans to flood. Ever since, the government has spent a lot of money in order to further develop the flood prevention system of New Orleans. One way that New Orleans has worked on preventing further disasters is by upgrading the drainage system. This just goes to show the necessary precautions that New Orleans is taking in order to prevent another major disaster. With climate change, flooding and storms will only get more server, which means that cities that are susceptible to flooding should do anything and everything they can to prevent such a disaster from occurring.
Works Cited:
Denchak, Melissa. “Flooding and Climate Change: Everything You Need to Know.” NRDC, 9 Nov. 2021, https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flooding-and-climate-change-everything-you-need-know.