Flooding

A river floods when to much water is travelling down the channel and that makes there banks move outwards and can create major problems for the people on land.

Why Do Rivers Flood?

Flooding tends to occur when there has been a high amount of rainfall; the nature of the land around the river will influence how quickly rainwater reaches the channel.

The following factors may encourage flooding:

• A steep-sided channel – a river channel surrounded by steep slopes causes a large amount of rain to spill into the channel.
• A lack of vegetation or woodland – trees and plants intercept precipitation (they catch or drink water). If there is little vegetation in the drainage path then there is more water going into the river.
• A drainage basin, consisting of mainly impermeable rock – this will mean that water will run faster down the rock therefore making more water enter the channel.
• A drainage basin in an urban area – these consist largely of impermeable concrete, which encourages flooding over land. Drains and sewers take water quickly and directly to the river channel. Houses with sloping roofs further increase the amount of run-off. Which will create more water in the river and can create the banks to break.

Minus all of them factors and you have got one of the most flood proof channels in the world! Many high flood risk areas are near a town or city where more precipitation enters the river.

The Impacts of Flooding

Floods can cause damage to homes and possessions as well as interfering with communications. However, flooding can also have positive impacts on an area.

Flooding can bring up silt (fine sand or clay) onto the floodplain, making it very fertile and excellent for growing crops. People living on or near floodplains may rely upon regular flooding to help support their farming and therefore provide food.

Developing countries tend to be affected more than more than developed countries by the effects of flooding. This is partly because developing countries have more farms, and farming communities are attracted to fertile flood plains. Developing countries often do not have the resources to prevent flooding or deal with the aftermath of flooding.

Ways to Prevent Flooding

There are ways you can stop flooding from happening, you can do it by using hard or soft methods. I am now going to show you an example of a hard engineering strategy and a soft engineering strategy and also tell you a few facts about each method.

Dam Construction

• Dams are often built along the course of a river in order to control the amount of discharge. Water is held back by the dam and released in a controlled way. This is a great way to control flooding.
• Water is usually stored in a reservoir behind the dam. This water can then be used to generate hydroelectric power or for recreation purposes.
• Building a dam can be very expensive.
• Sediment is often trapped behind the wall of the dam, leading to erosion further downstream.
• Settlements and agricultural land may be lost when the river valley is flooded to form a reservoir.

Planning

• Local authorities and the national government introduce policies to control urban development close to or on the floodplain. This reduces the chance of flooding and the risk of damage to property.
• There can be resistance to development restrictions in areas where there is a shortage of housing. Enforcing planning regulations and controls may be harder in developing countries.

Putting Our Feet Up

Today me and my um have decided to our feet up and relax. Over the last month we have been so busy and always doing things so during our time in Koh Samui we have decided to be a bit more laid back and just chill out. We are really enjoying just chilling out; we have started to understand that we need to have time to integrate some things and sit down and get some work done. For example today we have decided to have a sleep in and get some work done. Personally I am feeling really relaxed and settled and I am sure my mum is too. Today we are looking for our possible flights to Cambodia and we are going to find the cheapest date to go. We can stay in Thailand until the 20th of June so we are just going to go with the flow. We have also decided to be a bit more adventurous in Cambodia because we are going to Angkor Wat, which is apparently where ‘heaven meets earth’ I will leave a link near the near of the post.

I hope you guys have enjoyed todays post and if you have please leave a big fat like and also share this post. If you are new around here make sure you follow my blog so you can be the first to get to my daily content first!

Angkor Wat- https://www.lonelyplanet.com/cambodia/angkor-wat

Thanks for Reading

Peace