Our Understanding of Floods is ALL Wrong
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- čas přidán 29. 04. 2024
- Flooding is getting worse, and not just from hurricanes or rising tides, but from increased heavy rainfall. In this episode, we dive into the changing landscape of flood hazards. First, we journey to New York, to visit Hoboken, New Jersey, and Hollis, Queens, two communities facing different flood challenges. Then, we explore First Street's groundbreaking new risk map, pinpointing high-risk areas. Want to take action against flooding in your area? Watch this episode for insights and solutions.
Weathered is a show hosted by weather expert Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.
First Street Study: assets.firststreet.org/upload...
Damages Done: The Longitudinal Impacts of Natural Hazards on Wealth Inequality in the United States: academic.oup.com/socpro/artic...
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Those of us in the Permaculture and ecological design community have been hollering and beating pots and pans about this for twenty years, it is SO FRUSTRATING that it took this long for this topic to make it into more mainstream conversations but it's so great to see folks finally talking about this issue and working on better urban design. Now let's find a way to put that water back into the use cycle, or at least into soil storage, and not just sending it out into the ocean.
The parts of the world that need it most desperately are rural areas in poor countries or towns and cities being swallowed by gullies sprouting up everywhere from extreme rain. Integrating green zones that can feed, water, shelter and provide materials for residents also insulates them from the onset of food system collapse (which the world increasing faces risk of). Think Ukraine + Corona but on steroids. Communities that have so far prepared for resilience adapted better to Covid lockdowns. The new republic has a series on the topic.
One frustrating life lesson I've learned is something usually has to become a big problem or tragedy before it's addressed. The more disruption and/or death an event causes, the quicker the response.
I was teaching this to middle school students 15 years ago as part of an ecology class. They got it.
@@spamcan9208 unless it's gun violence
Storm water management it wasn't. Climate is fine. PBS is phaque knews.
I’m not gonna lie yall . . . I think that global warming theory might not be fake news.
Yeah, let’s call it what it is: global warming. Climate change is beyond P.C.
Look now further than the Exxon Mobile Research coverup
I keep trying tell my parents but they always offload it as "natural"
@@volcano.mitchell tell them fire is natural too but that doesnt negate the reality of arson
I work in agriculture in the midwest; our planting seasons have been very inconsistent the last five years. Last year we had very little rain for the entirety of the year; this year, we’ve gotten 6 inches of rain in the last three days. The soil wasn’t ready for it and we’ve had some flooding.
We don’t till our land and have a lot of soil conservation practices we follow, but our neighbors have had terrible erosion and it’s filling up the ditches we share, and it’s impossible to get out to some of the fields to get things set up because of how muddy it is.
I worry that farmers will be seeing another inconsistent season this year. Recency bias is certainly there but when I ask older folks in the community, they acknowledge that the weather has been “off”, but they get upset if you imply the climate has something to do with it. I’m not versed enough in meteorology to tell either way.
Last year Florida coastal water was at a surface temp of 100° for days. There certainly is something off about the weather.
Are you and your fellow farmers still calling climate change a hoax? Are they voting for those who say that to?
@@Raylen_Fa-ield Yes there is. What oh what could it be? It’s not like scientist for decades ago correctly, forecasted such events, owing to climate change.
@boxsterman77 a lot of the farming crowd under the age of 40 is pretty good about acknowledging climate change. Lot of the older cats just refuse no matter what the see.
The UK has had the wettest 18 months in history and farmers are warning of significant food production issues. Can't plant crops, seed potatoes rotting in the ground. Gonna be a fun year...
My street used to flood all the time. Since the local government installed a half dozen water collecting basins with big drains and absorbent plants, it hasn't flooded once.
... Which will last about as long as there's folk on the local boards with the insight and wisdom such installations need be maintained to function. After couple dry seasons, they may just think -we can use good money elsewhere. Next thing you know, your floods are back in force.
Progressive thinkers.
Maryland has a lot of good regulations with regard to development building . The land they purchase , a certain percentage has to be left undeveloped, usually the low lying part which are wetlands . This has significantly reduced flooding when we get storms . Or when we do get flooding , it clears out very soon after an event.
The don’t know why it’s so hard to grasp working WITH nature and not against it .
Mother Nature doesn’t play and always wins
When you suddenly get several weeks worth of rainfall in a few hours..
I live in Ft. Lauderdale. We got 26 inches in less than 24 hours. Climate change is already here.
Ice bucket challenge gold medalists
statistic buzzwords.
12:00 @@robertrowe9832
@riz Yeah right. Don't look up! It's just a statistical buzzword.. those with their head hiding in a hole in the ground will drown first..
While this focuses on the USA in particular Canada has also seen huge changes. Living in Halifax, Nova Scotia I have seen huge changes in our weather over the last twenty or more years. The pace of the change in weather has also quickened. Last year I was evacuated when fire burned down 200 homes on the edge of the city. Yet only a few months later we had huge floods washing out roads and flooding many neighborhoods.
My concern is the lack of proactive thinking with urban development here in Halifax.
You're not alone, we here on the west coast have similar problems.
We seem to swing between drought, and flood, with the dryness making the ground fairly impermeable, and then the water has nowhere to go.
More severe weather coming up from the south, more frequently. And NS is in the path.
Mitigation efforts like retention ponds and rain gardens work really well. They are also nice additions to park spaces. We know they work, and we should be creating more of them. You can even create rain gardens at home if you have the space. It's better to get the water to seep into the soil than to enter an overburdened sewer system
The retention pond near me has become a haven for wildlife and a lovely biking and hiking space, and we haven’t had road flooding since it went in
Pervious concrete can be used for walkways as well.
I agree, just wondering if there's any hazard of increased malaria risk.
@@JokerLurver for now the critters keep the pests pretty well in check but with our recent rains that might change
I’d still think a living ecosystem to be better suited to having checks and balances than a suburban sprawl
But why build a nice green park when you can have your 5th Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in the street?
Native New Yorker here. This is extremely important and scary information... but I just can't get over the way Maiya says "Hoboken" 💀
haven't lived in NJ in thirty years and I was still twitching every time...
At first, I thought she said HaDoKen, like in the Street Fighter games. 🤣
Get over it
I'm from LA and I'm with you on Hoboken.
I adore her as a science communicator but each time I heard it I was like 🥴… awesome Terra segment tho!!
We weren’t required to have flood insurance because our area wasn’t considered a flood zone.
Until Hurricane Harvey drowned Galveston & Dickinson. We had a foot of water in our house & fish in our front yard. Never lost power, oddly enough.
Our area is about 20-25 years old, a newer subdivision, and they built several retention ponds around us that worked great until Harvey overwhelmed everything.
I’ve lived here for 45years & I’ve been through many hurricanes & tropical storms (TS Allison, H. Alicia, H. Ike etc). I’ve never seen flooding higher than the curb until Harvey.
The detention ponds built for your neighborhood don't really serve your neighborhood, they attempt to protect people downstream. Some street flooding to curb level is generally considered acceptable in the Houston area and acts as temporary water storage.
I live in Livingston parish, Louisiana, where we had a "100 year flood" back in 2016. A lot of people had flood insurance, and a lot didn't. The one good thing that came from it was that we realized we can lean on our neighbors in times of need. People who had boats were rescuing people from their roofs, and a ton of local construction workers and other laborers worked for free to help people get their homes back together.
Insurance rates are gonna go up, as reinsurance financers are going to recalculate their risk math, if yesteryear 100 year floods now happen every decade.
We have a rain garden, for which we got a rebate from the city, to help manage rain events. Other people use water tanks.
This not only helps take water away from the under capacity city system, it also directs water away from our foundations, which is one of the biggest water damage risks right here.
It's also the nicest part of our garden right now :)
Some streets around us also have rain gardens, and some new buildings are putting similar features in, which must help (and the street ones also have the effect of filtering out oil and tyre residue which would otherwise enter the local waterways).
I'm living through a flood right now. Southern Brazil state of Rio Grande do Sul. We had 600mm of rainfall in three days. This is horrible. Hundreds of people died. Thousands lost their homes.
Novo Hamburgo here.
Canoas here 😢
Thank you for covering this topic. As a hydrologist, it has been sad to observe the level of ignorance on what has been occurring for decades.
The added benefit of infiltrating runoff is recharge of aquifers…of which many are overdrafted.
Much of the problem with flooding in drylands is dry, compacted soil, with the biota withered or deeply challenged.
Adding raingardens and bioswales is a cheap way to increase flood resiliency instead of expanding stormdrains. It reduces ground subsidence which harms concrete structures, recharges watertables, regreens, reduces pollution and streetside trash, etc.
My community has been stupid about flood awareness. We have a spillway going through the southern end of town and they decided to build houses on gravel along the spillway. Everyone knows the second we have a flood all those houses will instantly be washed away...
That's not surprising.
A similar thing happened in Houston. They built flood retention areas that serve as parks when it's not raining. People limed the area and built nice houses towards the rear area of the facilities. So when Harvey hit Houston, the city had to decide between holding more water and flooding the nice expensive houses behind the retention area and releasing water on the cheaper houses below the retention area outlet... I think you know which one they chose lol.
This even happens in the Netherlands. Southern City of Venlo built their brand new Hospital right out in the Floodplain, narrowing the flood channel of Meuse river by nearly half a mile, which in flood carries over 3500 cubic meters per second (about 12.350 cubic feet).
Nearly caused the levees to overflow during the 2021 torrential floods which in Germany took over 180 lives. Hospital had the waters right under its lowest windows. G knows what happens if next time rains are yet heavier. 100 year floods ? More like 20 years today.
I bet a Republican lead board approved this.
It's been interesting to watch from Vegas. We have had two 1000 year rain events the past two years. It's seems nice on the surface but it also has caused an explosion of invasive grasses which are raising the wildfire risk. Our Joshua trees and other desert plants are not adapted to fire and the damage lasts several lifetimes.
Portland Oregon USA has been putting in new raincatch parks includng the narrow by the parking space mini raincatches since 2006. Multnomah and Washington Counties have been putting in the mini raincatches since 2005. And Clackamas County is putting the mini raincatches along with bike lanes on suburban streets (they take a lane of traffic out of each side of a wide street to do it) to improve raincatch on the hills and slow down flooding in low areas. They got federal & state funds in 2022 for flood control... and are in the midst of a new 6 year flood control project.
in the netherlands we have rain gardens everywhere and they are still making more. also a lot of farm land gets turned into flood plains and marshes
In America we have maga which can’t think rationally
1:21 - Correct; this is an exponential function called the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. As you can visibly see in the graph, it's not strongly exponential. It accelerates, but it's at a moderate rate. That's because although the temperature variable is within the exponent, it appears both as a numerator (where it multiplies) and denominator (where it adds). So, it partially cancels itself and thus moderates the acceleration.
2:43 - NYC's water system is generally prepared for 3 inches of rain, just not within an hour. I'd rephrase it as the city is not prepared for storms that bring several inches of rain, or bring rainfall rates exceeding an inch or two per hour.
4:27 - The floodplains align "pretty much identically" with the green areas but not the blue areas. What are the green areas?
4:47 - The map accounts for flooding from rainstorms. It doesn't account for flooding from today's heaviest rainstorms.
5:07 - Ida could've been shown as a letter L for a low pressure system, rather than as a hurricane, when it got north of Mississippi. It was below tropical storm level at that point, and it transformed into a mid latitude storm starting in Kentucky. (Even when it restrengthened a bit over NJ and NY, it was still post-tropical. Once a tropical storm goes post-tropical, it stays post-tropical.)
Thinking about this makes me remember the city I grew up in - Midland Texas. We all joked about "The River Wadley" - one specific street, Wadley Avenue, consistently flooded every single time there was a thunderstorm. I was too young to understand then WHY the flooding happened, but Midland is smack in the middle of the desert! Annual precip was usually less than 12 inches I think. However, all that dry, dry land becomes hard as rock when it's dry for nine months straight... and that's why flash floods were always such a huge risk, everywhere in the city, even though the storm drains were HUGE.
Where I am now there are lots of creeks and green, but the water table's pretty damn high and the soil is almost fifty-fifty clay/sand. The sand drains great, the clay doesn't, and it averages out to something that the city infrastructure can handle. Barely. As things get worse I expect that we'll see more and more flooding, and I hope like hell our city planners are paying attention to what's happening in far away places like NYC. We're nowhere near that built up obviously, this is Mississippi, everyone loves having green around them and there's quite a strong dedication to NOT paving over everything. But that doesn't mean we don't have problem areas, I can think of at LEAST two schools whose parking lots become lakes when it's a bad storm.
I've heard about lots of materials science trying to develop permeable pavements and other things that will act more like sponges and allow better control of runoff, but I'm praying that such things become super cheap super quick.
In my hometown, Perry, Georgia (US)
We had a huge flood during a stalled tropical system in 1993 and it rained heavy for 3 days.
And every dam in the area busted and luckily our little town is on a hill but the surrounding areas were really affected.
We were stranded for weeks as all the roads outta town were washed out.
After that, our county hired engineers and planners and built a state of the art dam that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Instead of a wall.. it’s a row of big cement horizonal pyramids. And it’s never had issues again.
Also they got the county to put retention ponds at the end of every parking lot, and we haven’t had flooding since
All works well as long as flood installments are kept free and maintenance. But if nothing serious happens over 15 years local boards often decide they have better uses for the money, they can use those nice greens for expensive housing projects and such.
Until the next 100 year event, which in climate change, could well be here within 25 years. But then, it will be the next elected official's responsibility
I recently got tied into the sewer system from a septic tank and I spent a ton of time working the ground adding grass to hold the dirt back my parent have a duplex ranch so they collapsed (2) 1000 gal tanks and left a huge depression now it went from steep neglected dessert dry to perfectly graded smooth green rolling grass
Roughly every 25-50 years we get a catastrophic flood in my town in West Virginia (north central). The last one was in 1985 in which is still have Polaroid pictures of my father, back then a young man, rescuing residents from atop their roofs in a raggedy row boat. That same boat still sits under our car port, where my dad and I have maintained it since I was a kid just in case the town needs a hero again.
Wow. That wealth gap difference is insane. As well, I really didn't think Atlanta was gonna be THAT bad.
Terribly sad that crisis compounds an ongoing crisis.
This needs to change in my town. You're not even allowed to store rainwater in any way.
I am literally sitting in my office where we design rainfall resiliency measures in NYC atm
This is why when you make ANYTHING that's going to last long term, you should always think sustainability. For urban planning this is especially important cause not only do you have to worry about erosion, but you also have to worry about how the environment is going to change.
Living south of Atlanta, yes the “weather” has changed. We do get rainfall usually, but the most recent rain falls have been much heavier and we have seen flooding in areas we did into see it before. Also seems that some of the rain event lasts longer and then water over time just accumulates and backs up. We see it in our back yard now over the last couple years, it turns into a lake which is new to us. And local rivers have now reached the bottom of the bridge a couple times recently. While high water sometimes would happen, reaching the under deck is new.
I wonder if that's where all the rain we used to get here in NE FL went. Flooding here was so normal for so long, and we have decent infrastructure to deal with it but now that's dry even after a hurricane. Plus every storm that's forecast for here swings north of expectations.
Your observations are in-line with the First Street flood risk prediction maps.
I love all the series Maiya has been covering. I'm studying emergency management and about to start an internship with the state, so hearing about new and updated data like First Street has me excited about creating forward-thinking and equitable solutions.
@raulgarcia8685 Thank you. We need people like yourself to fully understand and find real-world solutions to our changing situation(s). God bless
George Costanza got really worried once when he peed in his bathtub while taking a shower and he wondered if it was OK to do and Jerry told him the sewer was all connected it didn't make any difference but I don't think George calmed down? I think n it probably doesn't matter like Jerry said it's all connected.
Here in Texas we are seeing massive floods and droughts at the same time. Now Texas has always been this way but the pendulum swing between extremes has become noticably bigger in recent years.
Macon county N.C. is currently deliberating on May 2, 2024 on whether to change the Little Tennessee River floodplain ordinance to allow fill dirt. A few officials think our county is too strict and should be equal to the rest of the State. The Little Tennessee is unique among Southern rivers in that it still has much of its freshwater biodiversity still intact. It is our strict local regulations that protect it.
I live in maine and we got absolutely hammered last year
I'm very glad I live in a place that received one of the highest 24 hour rainfall totals in American history back in the 1990s (a thunderstorm got "pinned" in place and just dumped all its rain on my area). Because of that, all new developments since then have such great flood mitigation infrastructure that when we get bad flash floods, life more or less continues as normal and you just drive a lot slower.
It’s so unfortunate that bad things have to happen FIRST before action is taken . My state does a lot of this too and you definitely notice it during storms
Honestly, here in my working class city in Massachusetts, we keep building and building in green spaces. A sprawling industrial park with lots of forest that was built on a swamp back in the 1940's is expanding and those forested area are now buildings and parking lots, so I am concerned. The ground water levels are frequently just inches below concrete slab foundations.
I live not far from there, only 100 meters from the river, but I have mitigated my risk. unlike my neighbors I kept all my trees, and I divert my roof runoff to a small artificial pond, wish a designed overflow with indigenous wetland plants.
My next door neighbors cut down their back yard trees so his children would have a backyard to play in, regardless of my warnings to them. They had standing water in the spring for a few days each spring, before they cut the trees. Now it's a about a month of standing water... I think he may have unintentionally created a vernal pond, but I haven't seen an increase in the amphibian population yet.
"I use the word 'exponentially' because I was taught it in math class and that was the first sentence I could use it in. 'Exponentially worse' means crappier and crappier and crappier."
- Lewis Black
Lewis Black doesn't say "crappier". He says "shittier".
As someone from New Orleans I can say with certainty infrastructure is VERY important when considering flooding and flood risk.
I feel like the move from Boston to Portland last year was probably a good call, aside from Cascadia.😉 The city of Portland is much more environmentally prepared for flood issues. The city infrastructure to promote natural rainwater drainage is like nothing I've seen before here.
I moved to PDX from DC almost 20 yrs ago and yes, we are much more progressive in many ways, since it rains a lot. But the overdue/looming Cascadia quake is still a huge concern that most infrastructure here isn't ready for.
Part of the reason why portland looks great is because we have 13 flood control dams in the upper Willamette basin. Portland, and the people of the Willamette Valley in general, realized back in the 50s that life near the river was always going to plagued with large floods unless they could stop it. It's had some bad environmental impacts for animals but no matter how many people sue the dams, they will never be removed as long as potential flooding could cause damage to hillman life and the economy.
@Firefenex1996 I watched a couple of documentary films about this, the Vanport history especially was a great example of what can go wrong. Klamath gives some hope of change, or at least more thoughtful ideas that work with nature, not fighting to "conquer" nature. That is fighting ourselves in reality.
@MikeyfromBOS yeah. I had to comment just to provide context that the real flood stopper are the dams, but I do agree with everything you said. I won't bore people with my environmental ideas too much lol.
@Firefenex1996 if only so many were not so bored by it.
Another great, informative video doc. Thanks for your hard work and dedication to informing the public. 👍🏼
Thank you for continuing to spread this information! It needs more attention, and we need more sources to combat the climate science deniers (and the spread of misinformation)
My community has similar problems. A lot of marshlands being converted into neighborhoods. All the water has to go somewhere.
And it's even more important with houses along rivers and creeks.
One can pump dry water logged areas as much as they want, they remain the lowest lying areas around. As soon as the 100 year event hits, they become wet land again, whether houses been built or not. Folks who bought m will complain though, "the community hasn't done enough", blah blah. And demand good money to be paid to keep dry an area which basically _was_ a natural retention basin.
Omg I love how Maiya pronounces the city of Hoboken. So cute. Oh n props to NJ for attempting to mitigate these heavy rains.
My community in MN pays its citizens to install raingardens on their property. We've seen reactions in flooding and increased water quality in our lakes. Plus they're pretty.
Nothing to add except THANK YOU. Someone had to say it, coming with the facts. Well said.
I love this channel. Thanks for the work you do.
While watching this, I keep thinking of the ongoing demand for greater housing density in urban centers. Here in Minneapolis, we’re building a lot of new apartments/condos on old, often abandoned industrial land. But perhaps some of that land should be used for green space and water retention instead. And south Minneapolis isn’t even a flood zone for the most part! I can imagine this same argument in a place like Houston, with much worse outcomes.
My city of Dover, NH unsuccessfully attempted to pass what many ignorantly referred to as a "rain tax" as a way to generate and dedicate funds to restructuring our infrastructure to handle large volumes of water (much of NH is touchy about the idea of taxes). Our city sits only 49 feet (just shy of 15 metres) above sea level and has one of New Hampshire's major tributaries to the tidal Piscataqua River, and we have been seeing some significant flooding begin to become a routine issue (in the past two years I have witnessed the Cocheco River out of it's banks five times, and in the past four years that I have been living at my condo community which sits just a few feet higher, the parking lot has flooded four times, three of which resulted in the loss of personal property, mostly vehicles. Being in a tidal area, we get a double whammy from the tides and flooding.
Japan has also created underground reservoirs in large cities, but last year the route of rain changed.
This is clear from checking the amount of water stored in dams across the country, and I think it is the effect of the meandering jet stream.
(I understand that the rainfall was higher than normal, but many dams experienced drought)
Therefore, countermeasures have been completed in cities that have suffered damage from heavy rains in the past, but because the route of rain has changed, I think that damage will increase in areas that have not suffered from heavy rain damage in the past.
We must promote more fundamental energy conservation measures.
0:45 and this is the part most people don't realize...
I don't know how many people I've talked to who thought that there should only be one 100-year flood in 100 years 😅
While I was dictating this comment, my roommate literally had the misunderstanding 😂😂😂😂
Maybe the concept should be better named? Not everyone is a meteorologist or disaster manager. 🤷♀️ (Percent chance of precipitation is similarly misunderstood.) Not really a laughing matter when lay people cannot properly assess their risk because what _sounds_ (and is presented as) "obvious" is actually nuanced.
1-in-100 year event = 1% chance each year.
Does that translate into a chance of flood on 3.6 days out of a year?
no
Just wanted to inform you that southeast of Australia there is a small country called New Zealand. We have had major rain events that your chart does not show.
They have no idea where NZ is 😂
@@mtwataBetter keep it that way, or they all wanna come over when things turn bad 😅
Thank you all so much for these very important videos, the more awareness the better!
In Horry County South Carolina after the 20 inches of rain in the fall of 2018 it took TWO YEARS for the swamp lands and water table to recover to the normal level of flooding 🎉
I appreciate the presentation and explanation of effective solutions. Nice work!
Maiya May, thank you so much for this amazingly comprehensive video. Water, being the most precious yet destructive resource on our planet, you would think it would be much better managed than it is.
I count myself as beyond lucky. Running water has always scared me, having grown up in a house built on the site of a gristmill. The millrace had been buried underground several decade did not change the fact that during heavy rains water still used the old millrace. When I found my "new home" the first thing I researched was site elevation. I am 20' off the highest elevation in the county, two miles from the nearest perennial stream and more than 300' and 20 miles from the lowest elevation. I sleep soundly during thunderstorms. I count myself lucky.
I think not understanding the concept of 100 year events might be why so many people have doubts about climate change. Yes, these kinds of events have always been happening...just nowhere near on this scale or frequency.
I live in Toronto and every time I see one of these climate change maps I wish they extended juuuust a bit further north so that we can see what the upcoming risks are too. However, I'm still glad for this content cus it reminds me that weather is definitely changing
In general, I'd say Canada is in a far more advantageous situation than USA, but in it's southern reaches, perhaps not. Plus, If we get weakening AMOC, Canada winters may turn for the bad. But a weaker AMOC will hurt USA much more.
What a powerful documentary! Thank you for revealing what led to this escalating problem. As well as one practical solution.
I'm glad the racial and economic inequalities are brought out.
Love these videos, great host!
In Brazil, whole cities are now submerged in water in a area as large as England. Porto Alegre, a big city was completely submerged and this is happening in many places close to the ocean.
This video popped up right after I finished listening to It's Gonna Be Me on May 1st and Maiya May is in this video and I can't
Best climat change video i have ever seen.
I live in the Hampton roads area of Virginia it floods every time it rains no matter if it’s a short or long storm. I’ve lived here since 2013 and it’s gets worst every year smh
This channel is great!
Good information. Thanks.
Thanks for making another interesting video. I'm glad we are learning better ways to measure risk.
San Diego County, where I live, has only one default reaction to everything . . . build, build, build, build, build.
Sounds like my country, where Ex pat workers (foreigner with high, specialized education) get a 30% tax cut, which ends up in pushing up house prices. Plus, house buyers get to the deduct their mortgage rent from tax payments, also keeping house prices high. Govt solution is, as you say, build build build. My country however is the Netherlands, mist of the housing in below sea level areas, which need increasing protection as sea level rise, which also means river dikes have to be reinforced, as river levels follow sea level. For every foot higher, the costs of reinforcements double . .
How are we doing? I live in Louisville, so apparently let we aren’t doing well. A lot of the “standard” flooding in Louisville is around creeks and the Ohio river waterfront areas, and a lot of those places are in parks and the newly implemented riverfront green space. Water is an issue, but local leaders seem to be doing a pretty good job based on what I’ve seen in the last 14 years. No complaints from me.
As you push or kick the problem down the road it only seems to gather momentum or steam and come back even harder
Yeah, but the public will bitch and moan if the problem is address years in advance.
I learned so much from this video!!!!!
Would be helpful to note in the Hoboken vs Hollis comparison that Hoboken's drainage was 100% funded by $230million award from HUD.
Terrific stuff! I'm glad there are some communities thinking outside of the box to mitigate the effects of climate change as we attempt to affect the root causes.
I love the cadence of this speaker
Our Sarasota county in Florida raise some our roads to 5ft high hurricane in 2022 it flooded the main road connected to i=75 highway so county handover the old two lane road to make it into 4lane road. And building a emergency hurricane side route.
Seems like a win-win, we save fresh water and reduce the likely hood of flooding.
Yeah I go to school in Lowell, MA and live by the river. When I saw the FEMA 100-year flood maps around the Merrimack it did NOT look right.
As I watch this in the end of April we r getting pounded by hail in western WA
Thumbs up from being positive and solution driven here. Not an easy thing to be in current atmosphere around climate change.
Fascinating video. Great topic. Why blur out your source's website? Seemed like a petty thing to do considering the work they're doing.
Think about it... We, as modern humans, now have the technology to not only communicate and compare with the entire world that things are changing, but to see it happening on a tiny, recorded, human timescale of a couple hundred years means it can't be denied and we need to keep changing (like the weather) to survive.
Great video but I didn't expect to hear my city in the video. Louisville
Thank you
Thank you 🙏
Drought also increases the amount of dead wood and debris our watersheds, especially when it isn't flushed through normal flows. This decreases the effectiveness of 100 yr flow designed/leveed channels with regards to handling "normal conditions" as locally increased roughness leads to concentrated erosion.
Civil engineer here. Most flood modeling sucked, even before climate change increased.
Most drainage regulations are still focused on protecting the property owners immediately downstream from excessive peak flows which could cause erosion. They don't do much on a larger scale to protect communities further downstream.
To keep the calculations somewhat simple, a typical rainfall distribution is usually assumed. But in the last 10 or 15 years the capability exists to do continuous modeling.
Instead of examining a few hypothetical rainfall scenarios, all flood modeling should ideally use real historical rainfall data. You then "play back" actual rainfall data, potentially decades worth, into the model and look for problems.
Another thing that people are missing I believe is that the urban heat island effect is acting much like a mountain range to increase rainfall locally. As system of cloudy weather approaches a big city on a hot sunny day, there is a lot of instability and the leading edge of the weather system can be pushed higher into the atmosphere where it cools rapidly and quickly condenses out water as intense rainfall.
good points, there should be enough tools to nail out what can be done and what isn't worth it: sometimes the place is just doomed in a 5/10 years span and the hard decision to leave an area removed of buildings need to be made
That risk map? I can tell you why there's a statistical difference in risk between two counties - parishes here in Louisiana - that are immediately adjacent to each other. In Caddo Parish, which is in the extreme northwest corner of the state bordering with Texas and Arkansas, there's comparatively little residential development alongside the Red River or its tributaries (like Twelve Mile Bayou). We still have flooding problems, and yes, they're more frequent in communities of color. That's still a social and economic problem that needs to be better addressed. But, on the other side of the river in Bossier Parish - the darker blue one right next to Caddo - you have entire subdivisions built alongside Red Chute Bayou. And the builders KNEW it was prone to flooding! I know because I worked briefly in home construction and got out of it. They didn't like it when you brought up flooding events from the late 90's and 2001. And whaddayou know, it flooded again. And those claims show up in the new map. Don't trust contractors to give you an honest risk assessment. As long as they get their money they'll leave you to face the consequences. If we want that to change we have to demand regulation. No industry likes regulations but they still need them.
I would love to see more green / terrace roofs as part of the solution
Had a flood like this in Canandaigua, NY last summer.
Just last summer, my city suffered an unheard of rainfall. So much came down so fast that our sewer systems couldn't keep up.
My 10-minute drive home took almost an hour, and it had me trying to circumvent several massive "puddles" that I was afraid might stall my car. Unfortunately, these small lakes were at pretty much every intersection and small valley in the road. Our area (se Wisconsin) has a lot of small hills.
Upper WI is just the best , yo we get some snow and cold but natural disaster risk is next to 0
We definitely need some rain here in arizona
I live in Louisville KY. The rainstorms can be pretty crazy and our local and state governments are doing 0 things to help with climate-related infrastructure improvements or community resilience.
With all the tillage and throwing away carbon - grass clippings and branches instead of mulching them on site, the soil structure has collapsed and carbon is missing in the soil. Soil life isn't getting taken care of to make those soil agrigates that absorb water. Using a 16 oz bottle of water and a 6 inch metal or pvc ring, you can test to see how long it takes your soil to absorb 1 inch of water, and then 2 inches, and more. If it takes more than an hour to absorb, then the soil is around half a percent of organic matter. Adding carbon or raised Huglekulture beds help to increase soil absorption of water.
Here on the Oregon Coast, when I was young, it would flood every Thanksgiving really bad.But the last 25 years or so it just doesn't flood as bad. We have a lot of rain, but not flooding rain. Will it one day return? Most likely. We survived it before and we will survive it again,,,,,,,,,,
When you mention inches of rain it would useful to know the mm of rain / cm of snow.
I love content like this great job guys
Must be noted that storm water systems are designed based on a statistic model from historical weather records, we were missing information to begin with so the systems could have been "somewhat off" from the beginning. Weather is not uniform, we go over periods of macro change as well.
in drier places, would this mean that more basins and dams would need to be built?
I’ve learned a lot about FEMA flood maps after losing our home in hurricane Florence (luckily we had flood insurance, but it still sucked!). Most maps have not been updated in decades to take into account loss permeable land due to increased infrastructure. They also do not account for rain events combined with wind driven surge for hurricane prone areas. I’m not blaming FEMA; they’re consistently under funded & under staffed. Additionally, they face extreme political pressure to mask the risk (real estate development lobbyists, climate change denial, etc). Flood is probably our most under insured risk in the U.S.
All glory to rainfall ... however:
"Mind the oceans, they will rise, by melting of snow and ice!
Coastlines facing a shrink, as land lots of water will drink!
How to prepare and mitigate,
it's up to humanity
to find a change of fate!
One method is to scrap climate denial and hearsay of the nay,
then watch and listen to PBS Terra and to Maiya May!"
First of may, what a day today!
Hire a few Dutch engineers and check out how we manage water here