Why do we have floods? Do we need floods?
Floods are nature's way of renewing its soul. Floods have existed before man walked the earth. We see evidence of ancient lakes, flood plains, and rivers, which tell us that flooding is shifting with changes in climate, with the movement of the earth's crust and with the action of humans.

From ancient times when humans were nomadic, floods were not a problem. Only when humans began to work the land and settled in one location, usually near rivers and lakes, rising water became a problem.

When country roads become congested, we build highways, when highways can no longer cope with the volume we build freeways, when freeways choke the towns we build by-passes.

But when water floods our homes, we sit, we cry, we complain and expect compensation.

We live in flood areas by choice. The rivers and flood plains were there first. If we don't like it we can move or build free-flows and by-passes for the water with large containment basins for flood control.

New branch troughs, wide and shallow which do not detract from the natural landscape and can be used for farming will take the water on a fast and by-pass route to the oceans. Inland by pass-towns and spill into flood plains.

It is important to express any ideas on flood control no matter how irrational they might seem so the government would take note and react. What do you suggest?

I am assuming a flood never flowed through your home Aquarius?
It never has been through mine, so I am not really sure how I would deal with it.

I would suggest that Governments in Australia financially help flood victims because they originally allowed the land their houses are built on to be cleared for housing.
There would also be a humanitarian reason too, given that we can afford to help the victims.

I think that the horse has already bolted with the current metro housing developments and the country town/rural houses already in existence.

We simply have to wear the damage from floods until we can come up with ways to divert floods from vulnerable developed areas.

I think that once a flood has been through an area more than once, then maybe the increased insurance premiums would be a deterrent for building there again?

Then, if the Government release land elsewhere to build new houses or even a whole new town, then they should be totally responsible if devastating floods deluge those areas?

If this was law, then the Government should make certain that areas released for housing are built in suitable areas?

Dear Suze,

I've just read your post and I believe that Aquarius is trying to solicit ideas how to control and overcome floods in areas of
existing development.

Anyway, it's late and I'll think of a few things some time tomorrow.

After years and years of having to deal with floods and unexpected water flows I can comment.
Some times we need to understand not every thing is within human understanding.
I have seen homes built on creek banks and flooded 4 times each year.
Believe me, water has great power.
Most on buying that first home put danger way back in the head, some activly look for closeness to water as a reason to buy.
Land owners sell, they want cash no involvement with future problems.
Real estate salesmen councils, often the same people ,care nothing about future.
Nanny state? maybe but developers can and do buy those who say yes or no, a prison term for this would go along way toward less building in such areas.
Nothing we put in the way of water can be seen as safe.

In his book 'Back from the Brink' Peter Andrews explained that the rivers of Australia ran over the land in times of flood, overflowing from one basin to another thus allowing much water to be absorbed below the surface where it continued to travel more slowly down the slopes.
It was European settlers who drained the country and channelled the rivers thus creating deep, eroded watercourses. They then put dams on the rivers both to store water for towns and irrigation, but also as flood mitigation. When the water no longer spread out over the grassland cities grew up on this land, which now flood in times when the flow can't be channelled between the banks of the deep, eroded watercourses that are our modern rivers.
The same thing has happened in countries like the USA where dike have been built to channel the Missippi River, thus creating a deep watercourse. All this channelled water in times of flood will break the levee banks.
The problems begin not with rainfall, but the way our rivers have been channelled.
As a country woman who has always lived in houses built on high ground my experience of flood damage only applies to having fences washed away, but I do know that every drought is followed by a flood.

Aquarius

Country Girl has explained all, most succinctly.

Thank you for your comments I do know the history of floods but my concern is what we are to do in the future and that is why I am asking for ideas from contributors as to HOW to deal with this problem.

We must control floods to eliminate ever increasing and cyclical expense and compensation.
This is not an issue of climate change, but as stated by others an historical reality which cannot be ignored.

From ancient times we controlled water, diverted rivers, built dams, dug wells, built aquaducts, pumped water up hill, seeded clouds.
Now in a modern and technical age we no longer cope.
We have equipment to dig large holes, to produce big profits for the mining companies but can't solve flooding problems. Men dug the
Caledonian canal in Scotland with shovels, the Suez and Panama canals,
Welland canal to by-pass Niagra Falls.

This is not an issue of climate change but a historic reality which cannot be ignored.
We must control floods to eliminate the ever increasing cyclical compensation. It is too late to re-locate development of flood-prone areas. No amount of past legislation has been able to control it.
The salmon must swim upstream no matter what the hazards.

It is time that we divert the excess volume of rivers, dedicate land for dry-bed lakes, improve management of water release from dams, and come up with brilliant solutions to control floods in a manner that has never been done before.

More to come.

Aquarius while I do not think we can ever control it, with todays methods.
We can make it better.
In threads here we have talked of water conservation, linking that to this can help.
If we installed on every roof, a water tank,that takes say ten days rain fall, we in ten days would still see all rainfall go down our Rivers.
So too dams we can build them use them, even prosper by them but once full the will run over one day.
A good and wise fella I knew, wanted to get a group such as the one that built the Snowy River scheme together.
A huge undertaking but his plan was to renew our inland Rivers by pumping storm water by a series of dams into them.
Cost of pumping stop it today, but maybe.
We can never drought proof Australia,we can not stop floods, yet, we could fund the workers the costs, but the long term running ? unsure.
We should, now, implement a Nation wide rebuilding and new building plan.
Yes it will cost, but sometimes these things pay for them selves.
Let us make a move to return flood lands to public ownership, and fund new land and homes above flood land.
We can do it, build no new homes on such land or anything other than public amenity's.
I have seen, on land not known to flood, hundreds of tonnes of concrete bridge wash away in seconds.

Thank you Belly, that is the type of iedas that I'm seeking.
I wrote to the Federal government and to the Queensland government six months ago on the matter of flood control offering a number of logical suggestions, reversing the flow of rivers included.

What I'm trying to solicit here is not necessarily logical or practical solutions but ideas which in their totality can lead to a brilliant long-term world-wide in application control of floods.
We in Australia have a reputation of being creative and inventive, but unfortunately we do not appreciate these ideas and they are snapped up overseas.

Mow on the matter of starting this theme we need to develop better management of water release from dams. At present we have dry lakes that flood periodically, Lake Eyre, and Lake George near Canberra.

Much effort had been made in seeding clouds to produce precipitation.
Clouds deposit when condensation results by cooling at higher elevation. Creating precipitation off-shore would reduce the volume on land. Warming clouds by safe chemical means would delay deposits until a safe area can be reached.

Sand-bagging and building levees are only temporary and fail with time. With a growing plastics industry an efficient water-tight system filled with water for stability, easily assembled and dismantled could act as emergency barriers.

Controlled sink-holes down to the earth's aquifer could drain some of the static water. Large buried pipes open at set critical water marks could drain water around towns.

There are many possibilities, come up with your ideas no amount of thought is wasted, it always leads to a creative solution.

We have to convince the authorities.

Dear Aquarius,

I've done a bit of reading up on this subject so that I could give
you a few thoughts on the subject. My ideas are the following:
1) Regulations to control permanent construction on flood plains (land that gets flooded) and to make buildings waterproof.
2) Programmes to help flood victims by improving methods to warn and evacuate people from flood plains and to provide better insurance and
relief aid.
3) Wider strips of land along waterways be left vacant. These could be
used as farmland or parkland.
4) Permanent buildings on flood plains should be flood-proofed. That is the buildings should be raised off the ground and water-proof construction material used.
5) Weather forecasters could play an important role in reducing flood losses by issuing storm and flood warnings.
Major diasters will continue to occur - but we need to be better prepared for them.