Flooding

Theory
Sherrene
What are Floods?
Floods are a natural disaster that occurs when the river overflows its banks, and
water rushes out to the surrounding floodplain. There is also such thing as coastal
flooding, where water flows in from the ocean instead of from the rivers.

● A 2007 report by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development found that coastal
flooding alone does about $3 trillion damage worldwide.
Physical Causes of Flooding
● Heavy and Prolonged Rainfall
○ The rainfall would saturate the soil quickly, and because the precipitation rate is higher than
infiltration rate, excess water would flow quickly over land, causing a short lag time, and a
flood.
● Saturated soil
○ This usually happens when there was antecedent rainfall, which is when there was a rainfall
event recently before. This means that the soil is already saturated with water, and the rain
travels by overland flow. Lag time shortens, and floods can occur.
● Impermeable rock
○ When the geology of the river valley comprises of non porous rock, water cannot permeate
through the rock, and this means that it is forced to travel overland, which reduces lag time,
and increases the risk of floods.
Physical Causes of Flooding
● Steep river valley
○ A steep river valley causes rainfall to flow to the channel mostly by overland flow, because
gravity is able to act more on water that is flowing more vertically. The water has no time to
infiltrate, and it just flows to the river. Reduces lag time, increases risk of flooding.
● Tributaries
○ The amount of tributaries flowing into the main channel also affects discharge. At a
confluence, the water in the tributary joins with the water in the main channel, increasing
discharge. After precipitation, the already high discharge rises even more, creating floods.
● Shape of Drainage Basin
○ If the drainage basin has a circular shape, the precipitation that falls into it will all reach the
river at about the same time. This leads to higher risk of flash floods.
● Snowmelt
○ Snowmelt causes extra water to flow through a drainage basin to the river channel. This can
cause floods. These floods are often annual, caused by the snowmelt when winter changes to
spring.
Human Causes of Flooding
● Urbanisation
○ Addition of impermeable surfaces and drainage systems in urban areas cause water to be
moved much more efficiently in the drainage basin, which reduces the lag time drastically and
causes increased risk of flooding.
● Deforestation
○ Cutting down and removing vegetation from a drainage basin causes the interception rate to
drop, which means that the water that was once intercepted and removed as
evapotranspiration, or absorbed by the roots will just travel on the ground, adding to the total
amount of water traveling to the river channel.
○ Less interception also means that heavy rainfall will pack down the soil much more because
there are no roots to keep the air spaces in the soil present. This packing down of the soil
reduces it’s permeability, reducing infiltration, and increasing surface runoff.
Human Causes of Flooding
● Climate Change
○ Could also be a human factor because the changes in temperature make storms stronger and
more frequent in some areas, leading to more floods.
○ Also leads to more snow melt, which can also increase risk of flooding.
● River Management
○ Some river management methods cause higher flood risks downstream, including Channel
Straightening and Wing Dykes.
Social Impacts
● DEATH
○ Flood water can travel very fast and pick up a lot of debris, which will drown and kill many people, especially in
LEDCs where they don’t have great infrastructure.
■ Eg. In the 2004 Bangladesh Floods, ~700 people were killed
○ In MEDCs, flood evacuation and rescue systems are much more developed, which helps to save hundreds of
lives.
■ Eg. In the 2004 Boscastle floods, no one died, only injured.
● Contamination of drinking water
○ This can cause waterborne diseases such as cholera, dysentery and diarrhea to be widespread, which can kill
many more people.
○ In Bangladesh, 100,000 people in Dhaka alone suffered from diarrhoea from the flood waters.
● Food shortage
○ Floods can often destroy crops, which impacts subsistence farmers especially in LEDCs. They are unable to
make food for themselves or money.
○ 1.1 million hectares of crops submerged.
● Homeless people
○ 36 million people made homeless.
Economic and Political Impacts
● Damage to Infrastructure
○ Buildings and homes destroyed. In the 2004 Bangladesh floods, Roads and bridges were
damaged/destroyed.
○ 352,000 houses submerged, 600,000 destroyed.
○ Damage to schools and hospitals ~ 7 billion dollars.
● Inflation of some Product prices
○ Eg. in the 2004 Bangladesh floods, the rice prices rose 30% because all of the rice that the
farmers were planting got destroyed. This caused the demand to rise, and the supply to
decrease, therefore the price went up.
● Hard to deliver overseas aid to most affected areas
○ Airport was also flooded, and many roads and bridges were damaged.
Environmental Impacts
● Submergence of Land
○ Often in floods, land is underwater → In the 2004 Bangladesh floods, ⅔ of Bangladesh was
under water.
● Contamination of water sources by pesticides and other chemicals
○ Floodwater can flow over farms that use chemical pesticides, and the water brings all the
chemicals back into the river where it can reduce biodiversity or cause eutrophication.
● Deposition of silt and other minerals that are good for future agriculture
○ Many farmers along rivers depend on seasonal flooding for the fertilizer they need to grow
good crops.
Prediction and Preparedness
● Monitor and Predict precipitation levels
○ Satellite images of cloud cover
○ Flood hydrographs of previous rainfall events
○ Weather forecast
○ Daily measures of streamflow of the river/s.
○ wind, humidity and temperature data.
● Predictions and forecasts shared
○ Through television or radio or mobile phones. More people get the warning → more people
have the chance to evacuate.
● Education
○ Education on what to do when there is a flood.
Hard Engineering Method
Dams: A giant wall built across a river to stop
the flow. A reservoir of water builds up behind it,
and this can be drained at a controlled rate,
preventing floods.
Artificial Levees: Embankments that are built
so that water doesn’t overflow the river.
Channel Straightening: Involves straightening
out a river channel, making it flow faster.
Diversion Spillways: Artificial channels that
water can go into when the river overflows. It
directs the water to downstream of the river, or
another river.
Wing Dykes: These are built 90 degrees to the
banks, and they make the water flow faster
through the smaller opening. Water flowing
faster drains the area around this part of the
river, reducing floods.
Advantages
less floods, HEP, water available for leisure
Allows the development of the floodplain, usually
quite durable to floods.
less floods at the area, more space to develop
next to the river.
Prevents flooding
Reduces chances of flooding at the area.
Disadvantages
EXPENSIVE, destroys habitat behind dam,
displacement of people, less sediment
downstream which means deltas can be eroded
away, kill aquatic animals.
If they do fail, the developed floodplain will
suffer, and the levee probably needs to be built
up after a while.
More floods downstream, increased erosion
downstream because water is faster, expensive.
Flooding can happen where the diverted water
meets another river, and if the spillway is
overwhelmed, the area may not be prepared for
flood.
May cause increased flooding in areas
downstream.
Hard Engineering Techniques
● Wing Dykes
 Three Gorges Dam
The Three Gorges Dam is a mega-dam located on the Yangtze River in central China. It’s 2.3km wide, 185m high and took over
15 years to build. The dam was built to stop seasonal flooding that takes place and kills hundreds of thousands of people.
\With several of China’s major economic cities (e.g. Nanjing) located along the Yangtze, it has become increasingly important for
the Chinese government to do something to reduce the risk of flooding.
Social ● Reduce flood risk → large floods now 1 in 100 yrs instead of 1 in 10.
● More than 1.2 million people had to move.
● Reservoir flooded 13 cities and hundreds of villages.
● Most of the people who had to move were very poor with little to no skill other than farming, so they struggled after being moved to a city.
● Many archaeological sites destroyed because of reservoir.
● For many of the people moved, the new residential is better than what they left.

Economic ● Overall cost is about ¥180 billion.

● Help the Chinese economy because the dam slows down and deepens the river, allowing more boats for trade.
● Reduce China’s dependency on coal → switching to HEP
● Inundation of land behind the dam was very costly because there were many factories that had to be relocated.
● Because of dam, some floodplains will not be very fertile anymore because there are less floods → less crop yield.

Political ● Forced relocation of 1.2 million people raised human rights concerns.
● World Bank refused to fund the project because of the negative social and environmental impacts.
● Dam could be a major military target because if it breaks it could destroy the cities downstream, which include Shanghai.

Environmental ● Less sediment flows through the river now because of the dam → more erosion downstream, gradual destruction of Yangtze Delta.
● Loss of sediment changes chemical composition of the water, causing the biodiversity to decrease since some animals/plants can only live in
a certain environment.
● Area that is now the reservoir was habitat to endangered animals like the Giant Panda and the Chinese Tiger → Loss of habitat.
● HEP → capacity of 22.5 GW, almost enough to supply 5% of China’s power.
Soft Engineering Method Advantages Disadvantages

Floodplain Zoning: Limiting what can be not expensive, reduces damage when the limits the development of certain areas,
built on different parts of the floodplain flood actually happens Can’t really use this method if floodplain is
(parks, fields) already developed.

Afforestation: Planting trees in a drainage Less risk of floods because of decreased requires a lot of space to be effective.
basin to increase interception and storage. discharge, less soil erosion, New habitat for
animals, improving water quality,

Wetland Restoration: Creating the right Increase habitat for animals, reduces it doesn’t reduce flooding at the area of
conditions for wetlands, which store a lot of flooding downstream. wetland, reduces area for farming.
water.

River Restoration: Involves restoring a Cheap, reduces flooding downstream, The river will flood at the place that this is
river that has undergone hard engineering reverts ecological damage done by the hard implemented, so only effective in land that is
techniques. Can include unstraightening the engineering. no longer valuable.
channel, removing artificial levees, etc.
River Cole
The River Cole is a tributary to the River Thames located in southern England. It had been heavily modified over 100s of
years in order to improve its efficiency for milling: the channel had been straightened, widened & dredged to reduce the risk
of flooding.Because of this, the quality of the water & biodiversity in the area has decreased quite a lot. In 1995, a project
was set up to restore the River Cole to its original course. The project was funded by the EU, the River Restoration Centre
(RRC), the Environmental Agency & The National Trust.

What the Project aimed to do Benefits Disadvantages

● Return the river back to how it
was in the past: They referenced
several maps from the past to
see how the river should flow,
and they created a new channel
with meanders based on that.
● Reintroduce wildlife to the area
● Improve the water quality
● Reduce the risk of flooding by
reintroducing wetland
● Recreated wetlands
● Flooding now occurs naturally,
making the soil more fertile and
reducing flooding downstream
● New wildlife and plants are
starting to grow.
● Farmers who were on the
floodplain didn’t want the
marshland
● The meandering river took up
more space.
● Even though flooding deposits
fertile alluvium, it also destroys
whatever is growing at the time.
Catchment Scale Management

● Flood management measures

that work with natural features
and processes reduce flood risk
at local scales.
 MEDC Case Study: Boscastle 2004 Floods
On the 16th of August, 2004, gigantic flash flood happened, said to be a once in 400 years event.

Location
Boscastle is located in southwest England less than a kilometre from the coastline. The River Valency flows
directly through the town and meets the River Jordan at a confluence in the town. The river valleys are steep
and composed of shale, an impermeable rock.

Causes Effects

● Previous Hurricane Alex and lots of
convectional rainfall (summer) → in 2 hours,
over 60mm of rainfall had fallen
● The rain fell over Bodmin Moor, which is mostly
impermeable rock that is has sparse vegetation
cover.
● The River Valency’s valley has steep sides
● Antecedent rainfall → Saturated soil.
● Urbanisation of the floodplain
● The River Valency had a confluence with the
River Jordan directly in Boscastle
● Severe property damage, buildings were
destroyed.
● Tourism in Boscastle reduced because people
were scared of another flood.
● Nobody was killed thanks to rescue teams, but
some suffered from hypothermia and broken
bones
● Water and electricity was cut off
● 76 cars and 6 buildings were washed out to
sea.
Short Term Responses
● A flood warning was issued for parts of Cornwall at 3:30pm but Boscastle wasn’t specifically warned.
● Just a few hours after the river flooded, a search and rescue operation was underway which lasted until 2:30am the
next day. Over 150 people were saved by search and rescue operations.
● 11 Days after the flood people were allowed to return to their homes to salvage their belongings. Living in their
homes wasn’t really viable at this stage.
● Prince Charles visited the town 2 days after the flood and donated a large sum of money to the town.
● A few days after the flood, geologists flew over the area to assess the risk of landslides triggered by the heavy rain.
● North Cornwall Council provided accommodation for 11 tourists who were unable to return home after the flood. The
night after the disaster, 100 people used the Camelford leisure centre as a refuge.

Long Term Responses

● Reconstruction didn’t begin until 2005 as the council waited on a report from hydrologists to determine the recurrence
interval of the flood.
● By early 2005, power and water was back up.
● The council invested money into improving Boscastle’s flood defences and the Environmental Agency also built new
flood defences. In 2006, the channel was widened and deepened to increase its capacity and ability to handle
sudden increases in discharge. In 2007, these defences were put to the test and a much smaller, more controlled
flood occurred.
● The remains of the “lower bridge” that triggered a 3m wave were demolished and replaced with a larger bridge that
would be more difficult to block with debris.
● The effects of the flood caused people in Boscastle to take their environmental footprint far more seriously because
they were led to believe that climate change exacerbated by human activity was responsible for the “freak weather”
that caused the river to flood. When buildings were reconstructed, they were done so in an environmentally friendly
manner with insulation, double glazing etc. being installed in the new buildings. The town won 5 awards for its eco-
friendliness.
 LEDC Case Study: Bangladesh 2004 Floods
Causes
● 75% of Bangladesh is at or below 10m above sea
level.
● Snowmelt in the Himalayas
● Increase in urbanisation in Bangladesh
● Deforestation - lack of interception
● Monsoons - 90% of the rain fell in a short period
of time
● Changing rainfall patterns - climate change -
unpredictable weather - less time to prepare
● Poor communication - lack of weather warnings
● Bangladesh is mostly built on the delta of the
Brahmaputra, Ganges and Meghna river
● LEDC → not enough funds to pay for good river
management.
Effects
● Over 700 deaths
● ⅔ of Bangladesh was underwater.
● 352,000 houses submerged, 600,000 destroyed - people forced to live on
higher ground, eg roads, embankments without shelter
● 36 million homeless
● Water pollution - spread of diseases such as dysentery and diarrhea -
lack of clean water
● Lack of food - 1.1 million hectares of crops submerged
● Increased soil erosion and deposition - floodplains inundated
● Men are forced to seek money away from home and family - low wages
● Increased price of rice - 30% increase
● After floods - land more fertile - grow more crops - no need to import food
● Damage of infrastructure said to be $7 billion
● Domestic and International flights suspended.
Responses
Short Term
● Emergency relief by government and NGO’s:
rice, clothing, medicine, etc.
● In July the United Nations activated a
disaster management team and supplied
critical emergency supplies in affected areas.
● Self help schemes – local people worked
together to rebuild their properties and
communities.
● Water purification tablets were issued.
Long Term
● Development of a flood forecast system to
produce daily 7-10 day forecasts.
● After the 2004 floods, the World Bank loaned
money to pay for infrastructure, water
resource management and education.
● Community leaders were trained to receive
forecasts by cell phone and to warn the
villagers.
● Community leaders advise action such as
telling farmers to harvest their crops or take
cattle to safety, and telling households to
store water, food and personal belongings
ahead of a flood.
 Compare and Contrast: MEDC vs. LEDC
The causes of the flooding in Boscastle and Bangladesh are quite different, even though they are ultimately due to intense rainfall in a
short period of time. In Boscastle, the hot summer heated the air and caused a lot of convectional rainfall. This combined with antecedent
rainfall events such as Hurricane Alex caused a lot of surface runoff, filling up the river at a fast rate. In Bangladesh, it is the Monsoon
rains that cause the intense rainfall, coupled with the effects of snowmelt from the himalayas and deforestation in the north of
Bangladesh.

Even though the flooding events are similar in MEDCs and LEDCs, the impacts and responses taken by the people and the government
are quite different. The impacts of flooding in an LEDC is usually more severe, leading to more people injured or killed compared to an
MEDC. An example of this is shown when comparing the amount of people who died in Bangladesh (700-800) and Boscastle (0) during
flooding events that took place in the same year. The difference in deaths is primarily because of the prediction of the Boscastle floods
beforehand, and the efficiency of the rescue team afterward. In Bangladesh, there was little to no warning, and the people were unable to
prepare or evacuate from the areas in danger. The flood also destroyed roads and transport links, making rescuing harder and more time
consuming, especially because a lot of the victims lived in rural villages that are relatively hard to access. In addition to this, the people in
MEDCs are more likely to be educated on what to do during a flood event, which gives them a better chance at surviving.

In terms of responses, MEDCs are usually able to take more action because they have a better economy which can pay for repairs and
upkeep of river management. For example, after the Boscastle floods, the rivers in question were deepened and widened to increase the
capacity of the river. This hard engineering is more costly, and is usually not seen in LEDCs. In Bangladesh, soft engineering methods
were mainly implemented (eg. flood forecast and education of the community).
River Management in Bali
In Denpasar, the flat land, and the increasing population and urbanization makes it
an area prone to flooding from the 3 main rivers that flow through the city: Ayung
River, Mati River, and Badung River.

What they have done:

● Channel Straightening and deepening

● The banks of the channel are reinforced.