On TV coverage of the floods we can sebe tempory levees being built, surely the time has come for more permanent levees and associated infrastructure, to protect our towns and people.
Australia is a rich country, richer than Holland and look what that country has achieved with levees (dykes).

Tamworth, NSW, has fine examples of levees.

I'm ambivalent about levees...

"If it keeps on raining, levee's going to break
If it keeps on raining, the levee's going to break
When the levee breaks, have no place to stay"

OTOH during the last drought...
"Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry". But, given I and the good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, I could be mistaken.

We should build not only levees but dredge the main
river systems to restore the depth of flow. All floods
contain silt in the water system which clogs up the
river systems. As an example - Port Philip Bay in
Victoria has the main shipping channels dredged on a
regular basis to insurance the required depth for
shipping. We need to do the same with our rivers to
insure a continuous large volume flow of water so they
don't flood.

Surely the time has come to replace our moronic politicians and bureaucrats with people who will do what is needed to deal with events that have been occurring regularly for more than two centuries.

"Should we build more levees in flood prone areas?"

Well, who's the we here?

If it's the Australian population as a whole that has to pay for it, then NO.

If it's the Local Community- especially those people who decided to buy/build on a flood plain- then YES.

Why should people who are smart enough not to live in known flood zones have to cough up money for those who choose to buy/build in a such an area?

Thinkabit just think a bit, there’s a good chap.

Yes of course local authorities should build levees, & then maintain them properly, & the drainage past them.

However they would then have to compensate those outside the chosen levees path, as the restriction of levees will make the flood higher & water flow faster than before.

Can you imagine the bun fights in councils at meetings deciding the rout & sighting of levees. Should be a good spectator blood sport.

The simple fact is that people who loose property to floods have done so because of their own life choices. When you live in a known flood zone it is reasonable to expect that you will, at some stage in the future, experience a flood- it is a foreseeable event by anyone with commonsense. Since events like these are foreseeable and the damage easily avoidable (ie: the damage is avoided by choosing NOT to live there), then people who suffer flood damage have themselves to blame for their losses.

It's the hallmark of a sensible and mature person that they will look after themselves instead of relying on others to take care of them. Also, a sensible and mature person will not compensate someone's loss unless those people will learn from their mistakes.
Sadly, some people are so stupid/hopeless that they need to personally experience loss for them to gain commonsense. It's tough love but these people shouldn't be helped.

In short, you shouldn't buy/build a house on a KNOWN flood plain unless you can PERSONALLY afford to either: a) mitigate the threat (eg: build levies) or b) repair/rebuild when it floods- it is as simple as that.

Thinkabit,
Why didn’t I think of thar, my cousins, who grow wheat and run a beef herd could have built their house on some of my son’s rocky and unproductive land for free and they’d have been absolutely safe from the water, of course they’d be 200 miles from home.

If you wish to eat in the cities then lots of people have to live on the plains country.

Dredging rivers doesn’t work because if you made the river deep enough to have any effect then in periods of low water the water table would drain into the deep channel and. the grass and trees would die.
The only way to protect towns is with levees and powerful pumps to keep the water down within the area protected by the levees.

Is Mise: "If you wish to eat in the cities then lots of people have to live on the plains country."

Yep, some farmland floods. All this means is that the farmer has to factor this into their calculations about the risk v's the return of their business. This doesn't mean that no farm should be located on a flood plain. It is perfectly reasonable for a person to farm a flood plain; provided that the losses from flood caused crop failures are less than the profit in non-flood years. But here's the rub: it's the farmer's personal responsibility to determine the risk v's reward BEFORE buying the land and farming.

If we start bailing out farmer's/rural retailers/etc, who aren't good businessmen and didn't do their maths right when determining the expected returns of their enterprise in the long term then you are effectively penalizing those people who did. Bad businessmen going broke is a GOOD thing- it's the economy pruning the bad wood from the system and making space for good businessmen to flourish and this benefits the whole of society overall.

And it's the same for residents in a rural town on a flood plain, they need to factor into their calculations the cost of flooding versus the benefits of living there.

If the residents of a town decide that a levee is good idea, then THEY, THEMSELVES, should pay for it, since it is THEIR town.

Thinkabit,
Do you apply the same reasoning to bush fires??

IsMise: "Do you apply the same reasoning to bush fires??"

Of course.

But it applies way more generally. I use this reasoning in any situation where there is a risk from a known/foreseeable event AND they had other options to take or its was possible to take no action at all. If people are willing take such chances then if they suffer a financial loss as a result they shouldn't be bailed-out by the general public.

Thinkabit,
In the bushfire scenario firebreaks and the removal of combustible undergrowth are the way to go for safety, without adequate fire breaks and clearing in the vicinity of dwellings there is sure disaster, yet the State will not allow adequate clearing, that is those not affected effect a barrier against safety, when that barrier causes loss then should not the instigators of the barrier share the blame and give financial assistance to the victims of their stupidity?

Levees are a short-term solution & should be continually built up & wider. We produce so much waste which could be mulched & mixed with concrete to make solid land fill to help raise the ground to build on. There should be no more new building in flood prone areas full stop ! Waterways should be widened & banks built up. It should be legislated that building waste should be taken to such areas & disposing of it there should be cost-free.
That'd be step 1 in reducing flooding.

Drove my Chevy to the levee
But the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing, "This'll be the day that I die"
This will be the day that I die.

The problem is not more levee's, but climate change and the disasters it is causing around the world, including in Australia.

YES!!That’s it.
Climate change! but what is responsible for all the great flood plains?

Indyvidual,
Levees are a permanent solution except for those thrown up in haste in front of rising flood waters.
A ban on new buildings would affect more than half of both NSW and Victoria and would be impratical.

Oh, we are pilgrims here below
Down by the riverside
Oh, soon to glory we will go
Down by... the riverside.

These floods are UNPRECEDENTED. Although according to our forum friend Ossie Ostrich and the coal burning brigade, just stick your heard in the sand, sorry mud, and all will be well. BTW, has anyone got the plans for the 'Tower of Babel', now there's a fix.

Is Mise: "when that barrier causes loss then should not the instigators of the barrier share the blame and give financial assistance to the victims of their stupidity?"

In my opinion it depends in the details. But to give a couple of examples that outline the general principle of being responsible for your own risk taking:
1) If you buy a property that it is next to a National/State park AND it is clear to anyone with commonsense that it is a massive fire risk because is not actively managed then if your place burns down then it is your fault.
2) On the other hand, if you own a property next to a bit of bush and historically (prior to the time you bought it) and currently (at the time that your placed burned) the government has a legislated requirement to manage the risk AND it has failed to actively adequately fulfill this requirement then in this case the government could possibly be held responsible.

By-the-way: I vaguely remember that a few years ago here in Queensland that the State Government introduced some laws permitting you (in a restricted fashion) to clear firebreaks on the their side of the fence for bushland they own. Don't know the exact details, and I could be completely wrong about this.

These are not unprecedented floods, there have been worse, but if they prove to be unprecedented, when they are finally over, that only means that the former unprecedented flood has lost the title.
As our experience of Australian floods only goes back a couple of hundred years then any known unprecedented flood must be in that time frame.
Tamworth NSW has had a very successful levee system for some years and it has paid for itself when the Peel River has risen to flood levels.
There is a lot on Google regarding Tamworth and local floods.
Substantial permanent levees are the answer and once built are cheap to maintain.

A ban on new buildings would affect more than half of both NSW and Victoria and would be impractical.
Is Mise,
All that's needed to stop is the practice of building low level homes on low ground/floodplains.
Build in such places then at least have the sense to build high set or just don't build hoimes there.
As I stated in posts all along, create more & wider channels & also canal developments on flood plains, they'll take up the volume from floods or at least reduce the damage & will help keep insurance premiums down for those who never claim.
Councils approving the selling of such land must be made accountable also !

Indyvidual,
You don’t seem to appreciate how flat a lot of western NSW and Victoria are, Moree , currently flooded is almost level and many towns are on vast flats.
As an example of how flat; years ago, in my youth, I was working at Mungindi and became homesick for the sight of a hill.
I heard mention of So and So’s.Hill on the road to Pockataroo, so the next Sunday I drove out there in my not very powerful 1828 Chev 4 tourer, I drove over the hill in top gear and never noticed it.

Is Mise,
So, now that people know that the area floods, will they continue to build low level or will they start moving to higher ground or what's the general go ?
How high has the water risen there ? If everything is now flooded will people remain or will they move ? I mean, will there be employment after the flooding ?
Would most people choose to leave if they can afford it & if they can't will they rebuild until they cop it again ? Are there plans for moving people out of these areas ?
If the flooding is not deep perhaps high set buildings might be the go or building up the block etc.
Do people there actually say they want to stay despite knowing what can happen ?
Of course affordability is the greatest issue & Govt should assist people to move. The Dutch have a system where houses are literally houseboats & are ready for flooding. Perhaps similar plans could be made here ?

Indyvidual,
They’ve known that the areas flood for yonks and there is no high ground.

Levees would stop flooding and cost far less and use less material than raising a town, where there have been levees built they have been effective and there are other benefits; Tamworth has a shared concrete walking/cycling path on top of their’s.

They’ve known that the areas flood for yonks and there is no high ground.
Is Mise,
Well, isn't that a good enough reason not to build any more ? To build levees takes as much materials as it would raising a house foundation to above flood level !
Levees are just another band-aid & a target for terrorists ! A couple of sticks of gelignite & the levees become useless. It'd take too long & too much Gelignite to blow up every house on built-up foundation. You should have sufficient imagination to see the difference. leave low, flood-prone ground to water & build homes on higher ground ! If the flood levels aren't too high then build up foundations. You'll find the physical side will work better than than the theorising of the "experts" !

In spite of what the village idiot claims, these floods are not unprecedented and there have been more severe floods before.

The state government and councils have all been well aware of where the flood plains are and have been happy to have people building on them as long as it brings in rates and taxes. When these areas flood and people lose their livelihoods, the states and councils simply wash their hands of the problem and blame climate change.

Levies and dams should be built to control flooding, but that is exactly what the greens hate.

So it seems there are people here that have no qualms at all in resorting to authoritarianism to "protect" people. It seems to me that they think that they know best how to protect people and that the general population shouldn't be able to decide for themselves what's good for them or not. Only the elites are allowed to decide where people can live.

Well their desired world is *not* a world that I want to live in. In the world that I want to live in, people are allowed to decided for themselves what risks they want to take. In my preferred world, a person can do *whatever* they want, as long as it doesn't prevent others from doing their own thing and additionally when things go bad for them then they sort it out themselves. In this world, people can build *wherever* they please, but the catch is that when their house floods or burns or slides down a hill or the sea sweeps it off the shoreline or etc., it's their own personal loss.

It's perfectly reasonable for some people to build on flood plains, because for some people the reward they get from living on the flood plain is greater than the loss they occasionally suffer. It's up to people individually to decide this. To give an example of this, in Brisbane their are mansions along the river. These people enjoy the benefits of the river, eg: a nice view, a private jetty, an exclusive/wealthy suburb, etc. But every now and then the river floods and causes damage, but for them it doesn't matter because they are rich enough to cover the losses.

Who should pay for these levees?

If I buy, build or rent a house in a non-flood prone area
- Then why should my rates / taxes be used to pay for the infrastructure needs of the people who did choose to buy, build or rent in flood prone areas?

In this context, it feels like a wealth transfer.
Or put another way, theft.

It is apparent that the vastness and flatness of much of Australia is not appreciated/understood.
For the good of our society thousands of people live in flood prone areas but for some people these fellow citizens should not be helped.
Is one to assume then that because they live distant from the cities and chose freely to do so that they should build their own roads and railways, pay for a local police force, postal service, electricity supply etc?

Indyvidual,
Apparently you have never used explosives nor seen a levee.
A couple of sticks of gelignite are often required to remove a decent tree stump, their effect on a permanent levee large enough to protect a town would hardly be noticeable.

Is Mise: "Is one to assume then that because they live distant from the cities and chose freely to do so that they should build their own roads and railways, pay for a local police force, postal service, electricity supply etc?"

In my opinion, it's best to have infrastructure and services paid by those who use them. This commonly happens to some degree anyway. Eg:

Roads: locally they're built by developers and councils, and upkeep mainly funded for by rates (so in the main locals pay for their own local roads). User paid state rego, fuel taxes and tolls contribute a lot to the state road infrastructure but don't cover it completely.
For me, toll payments should be way more common on major roads- this is how many roads use to be paid for in centuries past. These days with electronic billing it is easy to implement tolls on existing and new roads.

Railways: ticket sales and cartage fees contribute to the upkeep, but normally don't cover cost completely. New ones are usually paid for by State Governments with additional Federal Government funding. To improve this, it would be better if we fully privatised all railways and make them fully self-funded.

Postal service: is self funded through postage, courier fees and other goods and services sold.

Electricity supply: In the main, users pay for the electricity they use.

-- continue below --

-- from above --

Police: The glaring omission here is the police force. They're mainly State funded but they do raise money by fines and payments for services provided. Although moeny raised by fines and services doesn't flow exclusively to the local police that generated the income.
Personally I don't mind that they are State funded and not privatised and self-funded. If they were privatised and self-funded then there would be too much temptation for the owners to abuse their powers. But one suggestion I have to improve delivery of services is to require the State to provide a basic guaranteed minimum service to every region (eg: such as a minimum on-the-beat-officers to population ratio), but local councils could top-up the budget of their local police as the council see fit to address concerns that local residents have about lack of policing (ie: local councils could sponsor extra state provided police officers). Payment for services provided by the police (eg: policing for major events) should be received by the police district that provided them. However, I feel that funds raised by fines should never be directed to the policing region that issue them- there would be to much temptation by local pollies to pressure the police to go on revenue raising fining campaigns in their own districts to pay for more officers.

is Mise,
Have you ever watched water breaching a dam/levee ? If you did you'd know that there's no stopping it !
Of course levees are good but they're not a permanent solution. Once levees are constructed they should be constantly built up until they actually become land wide enough to be built on !
Sort of land reclaiming on land !
It'd get rid of a hell of a lot of waste as well ! Plant trees & have drains leading back to the main stream. There's so much that could be done if only the experts were kept away from it all !

Indyvidual: "There's so much that could be done if only the experts were kept away from it all !"

Hmm, let me fix this for you:

"There's so much that could be done if only WE HAD A INFINITE AMOUNT OF MONEY !"

Like just about all your other crazy ideas, it not economically feasible to do what you suggest. It would cost more than you would gain to raise the land levels as you propose. Land reclamation makes sense in some parts of the world because the land they are creating is in areas where land is very expensive, for example, in Singapore, Netherlands, etc. Or places where the new land can be sold as an exclusive exotic are area to live even though the land was originally very cheap, such as canal estates created from swamps.

In the regional areas that IsMise is talking about, if you were to raise the level of the land by meters (for some of these flood areas we're talking over 10m) it would make the land too expensive to buy for the type socioeconomic locality that they are.

We could start funding town levees by using the money that’s being put aside for the upcoming next two referendums, and do much more good with it.

Indyvidual,
Levees are a permanent solution, you said so yourself where you suggest that they be wide enough to build on, surely you’re not suggesting that houses be built on non-permanent land.

This sounds like a project for my "Seniors National Service"! Lads, picks and shovels at the ready, we have now ditched the idea of lowering the rivers as proposed by Professor Nincompoop and will now build levees. How high you ask, good question, well I do believe the Murray River peaked at 95 meters, so 100 meters high should do the trick, just to be on the safe side. We shall build a string of new towns and burbs atop of our wondrous new levees including Indyville and Issyville, populated by overworked bureaucrats and public servants with free housing! With the savings we will be making by not paying out useless aged welfare, $25 billion in the first year alone, and billions more in the years after that! As the lads march from their newly established camp at Sunny Gulag to the tune of "Hi Ho Hi Ho It's Off To Work We Go" the lads will be reinvigorated in their twilight years, all at little cost to us poor suffering taxpayers.

Words of inspiration for my Seniors Army;

… We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig from early morn till night
We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig up everything in sight.

Without levees a huge part of the US Mississippi river basin would be uninhabitable, & a very large part of their agricultural production could not happen.

Levees developed naturally. Rivers built up their banks with silt, & man then extended the idea. The bottom of many large old rivers are actually above the surrounding flood plain, having built their own levees.

Some suggesting deepening the rivers by excavating the bottoms, which may help a little, but in a would be a bit like a pimple on a pumpkin as far as flood level is concerned. Then can you imagine the screams from the ratbag greens if you start removing all the debris & snags from rivers. Where will the poor fish find a home?

Of course levees must be maintained properly. Maryborough flooded earlier this year when the flood gates installed to allow rain water to drain from the town to the river failed to shut automatically, allowing part of the CBD to flood through them. Those levees have protected the city for years, pity the bureaucrats of the council did not do their job. Always a problem with government on any level.

Just read a learned paper on levees and they are described as a temporary solution, the authors completely ignore the Mississippi system as mentioned by Hasbeen above, they also ignore the Chinese levees on the Yellow River, some of which date back possibly 3,ooo years.
The authors of the paper argue.for climate change as part of the solution ??

"There's so much that could be done if only WE HAD A INFINITE AMOUNT OF MONEY !"
thinkabit,
Spoken like a true bureaudroid. We could more than half such costs if we kept the "experts" away & let people who know deal with it !

indy: "Spoken like a true bureaudroid. We could more than half such costs if we kept the "experts" away & let people who know deal with it !"

From reading your various wild civil engineering proposals over the years, I can easily understand why you never managed to become financially independent but instead ended up on the aged pension. Your proposals simply don't make economic sense. Let me detail to you why this last brain fart of an idea of your's won't work.

Let's take the town of Moree as our case study since it is one of the towns that is suffering. Here are some pictures of its flooding on the ABC website: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-28/before-and-during-photos-of-gunnedah-and-moree-floods/101585484 .

Staring with raw real-life data. I've searched for land for sale in Moree on realestate.com ( http://www.realestate.com.au/buy/property-land-in-moree,+nsw+2400/list-1 ). Here's ALL the house block sized parcels (ie: 1/2 acre or less and not commercial) they have listed for sale. I've calculate the price per area and listed them form least to most expansive.

FF : 8/6 Welbon St., 49000$ :2023m^2 -> 24$/m^2
FF : 8 Barwon Ave... 25000$ : 652m^2 -> 38$/m^2
FF : 15 Tawarri St., 22000$ : 564m^2 -> 39$/m^2
FF : 75 Anne St...., 55000$ :1378m^2 -> 40$/m^2
-- : 60 Oak St....., 85000$ : 1750m^2 -> 49$/m^2
FF : 321 Auburn St., 50000$ : 849m^2 -> 59$/m^2
FF : 8 James St...., 40000$ : 612m^2 -> 65$/m^2
FF : 14 Florence St, 78500$ : 930m^2 -> 84$/m^2
FF : 278 Warialda St,85000$ : 942m^2 -> 90$/m^2
-- : 4 Cooee St...., 60000$ : 651m^2 -> 92$/m^2
FF : 33 Bohenia Cr., 95000$ : 730m^2 -> 130$/m^2

Note that in the above the FF stands for flood free. That is, these are the blocks of land for sale that the advert specifically mentioned are flood free*.

-continued below-

IMPORTANTLY, the above real-life data says that you can pay a median price of about 60$/m^2 for flood free land.

Ok, now let's assume you can acquire free** land, but the catch is that it floods. Under your plan we raise the land's level with waste fill. Broadly this involves:
1 - organise and supervise the collection of the fill material (you need to make certain that the fill is the right type and not contaminated with toxic substances)
2 - process the material if needed (eg: crush concrete waste to the right size)
3 - load and transport it 100's of kilometers from the cities and towns where you're collecting it to Moree
4 - tip and spread it out
5 - compact it

For your project to be viable you need to be able to reclaim flood land CHEAPER than you can buy existing available flood-free land. Specifically, you need to be able to do the above 5 steps at a cost cheaper than*^:

raise level 2m : 15$/ton-of-fill
raise level 3m : 10$/ton
raise level 4m : 7.5$/ton
raise level 5m : 6$/ton
raise level 6m : 5$/ton

So do you really think it is possible to implement your proposal at below these prices? Can you now see now why your idea will be a financial failure if you were to raise land levels by meters?

The other problem with you plan is not just the costs involved but the practicality. We simply don't have enough waste fill available to apply your scheme on broad scales in the near future. It would take decades/centuries to accumulate enough waste fill for any sizeable reclaimed area big enough to build a town on top of.

-continued below-

[*Initially, I intended to cross check these addresses with flood maps for record 1955 flood, but I can't find any freely available maps on the internet. So just have to take the ads' claims at face value.
** Obviously not realistic- in reality flood land will still cost you. So this means your proposal is an even worse idea.
*^ here I'm assuming the fill is about 2000kg/m^3 density- ie. to fill 1 cubic meter it requires 2 tons of fill.]

Hi thinkabit,

Correct me if I'm wrong. You said elsewhere you are opposed to spending taxpayer dollars where its not in the direct self interest of the taxpayer, eg; aboriginal welfare. Well, paying out millions for flood victims seems to fall into the same category, would you not agree.

Is Mise- In this case I would support the levis in order to smooth out the boom bust cycles. Adam Smith doesn't like the price gouging that occurs due to supply shortages. Keyne despite his failings argues for smoothing out of the cycles using government spending. Friedman would probably be against taxation being used for the levis. Republican Benjamin Franklin would probably be for them- given his support for poor hospitals.

The farmland around a capital city sustains the supplies of the city in a fairly fundamental way looking at Maslow's hierarchy.

Cheap farm produce is good for everyone so everyone benefits- this is achieved if supply is high. If everyone benefits then why shouldn't everyone pay. It's better to pay for this than council based child care- that many don't use- but still have to pay for.