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Coastal megacities, environmental hazards and global environmental change
Published in Mark Pelling, Sophie Blackburn, Megacities and the Coast, 2014
Urban flooding has multiple, often interacting causes, mainly storm surges, river overflows or intense rainfall. Coastal regions are particularly vulnerable to the impact of urban flooding, due to a combination of natural and man-made factors (Cashman, 2011; Nicholls, 2004; Wisner et al., 2004). Drains are often blocked by solid waste and debris, drainage systems are inadequate, and urban land cover is generally impermeable and compact, thus limiting space for water storage (Sherbini et al., 2007). Floods can also increase pollutant levels in water supplies (e.g. reservoirs, rivers), and disproportionately affect those settlements located on floodplains (Rosenzweig et al., 2011).
Environmental Health Emergencies, Disasters, and Terrorism
Published in Herman Koren, Best Practices for Environmental Health, 2017
Floods are the most frequent and costly natural hazard in the United States, leading to many deaths and, as a result of the severity, result in the most frequent presidential disaster declarations for natural or weather-related events. Millions of people live in flood-prone areas in the United States, where repetitive flooding causes additional damage in already damaged areas. There are very large population concentrations in many of these flood-prone areas and therefore the opportunity for huge costs and substantial injuries and potential deaths continues to increase. Destruction of wetlands in order to erect buildings in prime areas has contributed substantially to this problem. Large numbers of people live in areas that may either flood occasionally or not flood at all, but because of new conditions in the area such as the aftermath of wildfires or because of changing weather patterns and conditions, flooding may now occur. Floods may be caused by: tidal surge, severe thunderstorms, oversaturation of soils, and spring thaw of frozen land, snow, and ice; heavy rains from tropical storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other severe weather events; and the topping or destruction of levees and dams. A flash flood, which may be caused by a slow-moving storm, is a rapid filling of a low-lying area in less than 6 hours, however it can occur in a matter of minutes. The force of the water can cause landslides, move boulders, rip out trees, and damage or destroy various structures, roadways, and bridges. It can also inundate water and sewage systems, electrical systems, communications systems, and all means of rescue. Areas of wildfires denude the land and make it vulnerable to mudslides and flooding when heavy rains occur.
Hydropower and Floods
Published in Saeid Eslamian, Faezeh Eslamian, Flood Handbook, 2022
Sachin Kumar, Aanchal Singh S. Vardhan, Akanksha Singh S. Vardhan, R. K. Saket, D.P. Kothari, Saeid Eslamian
Floods are caused by many factors or a combination of any of these generally prolonged heavy rainfall (locally concentrated or throughout a catchment area), highly accelerated snowmelt, severe winds over water, unusually high tides, tsunamis, or failure of dams, levees, retention ponds, or other structures that retained the water. Flooding can be exacerbated by increased amounts of impervious surface or other natural hazards such as wildfires, reducing the supply of vegetation that can absorb rainfall.
Big Data Driven Map Reduce Framework for Automated Flood Disaster Detection Based on Heuristic-Based Ensemble Learning
Published in Cybernetics and Systems, 2022
Abdallah Saleh Ali Shatat, Md. Mobin Akhtar, Abu Sarwar Zamani, Sara Dilshad, Faizan Samdani
Flood disaster is the most common natural disaster in the global region. Flood disasters can be caused by heavy rainfall, the severity of winds over water, high tides in water, etc. It creates a huge impact on human lives, the environment, and economic losses. Therefore, flood disaster detection is widely used to mitigate the damage and impacts of floods. Flood mitigation entails managing and controlling the movement of flood water. In past studies, the existing algorithm could not access a large dataset and required more computational cost. Since floods occur by a landslide, some traditional methods are futile for the early detection of floods. Because of these constraints, recent techniques can forecast flood damage. To enhance the prediction accuracy, a newly developed algorithm is proposed to detect flood disaster and attains high prediction accuracy, as shown in Figure 1.