Flood
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flood,
inundation of land by the rise and overflow of a body of water. Floods occur most commonly when water from heavy rainfall, from melting ice and snow, or from a combination of these exceeds the carrying capacity of the river system, lake, or the like into which it runs. Usually the combined flow of several water-swollen tributaries causes flooding along a river bank or shoreline. Accounts of floods that destroyed nearly all life are found in the mythology of many peoples (see DelugeDeluge, in the Bible, the overwhelming flood that covered the earth and destroyed every living thing except the family of Noah and the creatures in his ark. Archaeology has yielded little trace of the biblical flood, but some oceanographers and geophysicists have speculated
..... Click the link for more information. ). Not all floods are destructive, however. The annual floodwaters of the Nile and some other larger rivers historically deposited fertile soil along the surrounding floodplainfloodplain,
level land along the course of a river formed by the deposition of sediment during periodic floods. Floodplains contain such features as levees, backswamps, delta plains, and oxbow lakes.
..... Click the link for more information. , which is used extensively for agriculture. The damming of the Nile and other rivers in modern times, however, often has greatly reduced this deposition.
Flood Characteristics and Control
The rise and fall of the water level in a river is called the flood wave. Its highest point, or crest, travels progressively downstream. In the upstream portions of a river the flood crest passes quickly. Further downstream the greater volume of water causes slower passage of the flood crest, resulting in floods of longer duration. In many regions, annual floods follow the thaws and rains of spring; flooding also may occur because of thawing ice jamming narrower and shallower parts of a river. In the Arctic regions, especially in the basins of northward flowing rivers, the floods are caused by the thawing of the southern portion of the basin before the ice blocking the lower course of the river melts. Less predictable are floods resulting from ocean waves, called storm surges, pushed onshore by an advancing hurricane, and from sudden torrential flows, called flash floods, following a brief, intense rainstorm or the bursting of a natural or constructed dam or levee. In addition to the duration and quantity of rainfall, the nature of the soil (permeability; state of saturation) of an area affects the frequency of floods.
Generally, flood control measures along a river are attempted at both its headwaters and its low-lying floodplains. Runoff can be detained in the headwaters by planting ground cover on the slopes, building terraces to increase soil infiltration and prevent soil erosion, and building small check dams or retaining ponds to reduce the flow of water. Flood control on the lower floodplains involves building levees to contain the flow and straightening or dredging the channel to improve flow characteristics. Concern over the affects of channelization on rivers in floodplains has led to the development of flood-control approaches that attempt to combine the way floodplains naturally handle floodwaters with traditional methods that restrict those waters greater spread. Such an approach might involve increasing the distance of levees from a river's channel along with the creation of wetlands to absorb floodwaters. The relocation of residences and business from flood-prone areas has also been used as a means of diminished the human and economic impact of recurrent flooding. Among the chief flood-control projects in the United States are the flood control works along the Mississippi River, the installations of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams on the Colorado River, and the systems of dams in the Columbia River basin (including Grand Coulee Dam) and in the Missouri River basin.
Notable Floods
A flood of the Tiber was recorded in 413 B.C. Records of floods on the Danube date from A.D. 1000. In China some of the world's most disastrous floods have been caused by the unstable Huang He (Yellow River). The river, which flows at or above the level of the bordering land, is contained in part by levees; however, because its channel has gradually become filled with deposited sediment, any appreciable increase in its volume causes the river to overflow and flood the surrounding area. The Netherlands, dependent on its dikes for protection from inundation, has suffered many disastrous floods from the sea and the Rhine and Meuse rivers. In 1970, 1985, and 1991, hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh were killed when the combination of high tidestide,
alternate and regular rise and fall of sea level in oceans and other large bodies of water. These changes are caused by the gravitational attraction of the moon and, to a lesser extent, of the sun on the earth.
..... Click the link for more information. and a tropical cyclone (see hurricanehurricane,
tropical cyclone in which winds attain speeds greater than 74 mi (119 km) per hr. Wind speeds gust over 200 mi (320 km) per hr in some hurricanes. The term is often restricted to those storms occurring over the N Atlantic Ocean; the identical phenomenon occurring over
..... Click the link for more information. ) storm surge caused widespread flooding of the low-lying deltadelta
[from triangular shape of the Nile delta, like the Greek letter delta], a deposit of clay, silt, and sand formed at the mouth of a river where the stream loses velocity and drops part of its sediment load.
..... Click the link for more information. of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers.
In the United States the Johnstown, Pa., flood of 1889, in which thousands of lives were lost, was caused by the breaking of an earth dam above the city. Even greater loss of life occurred (1900) in Galveston, Tex., when tide and storm surges engulfed the city after a hurricane. The hurricanes of 1938 on the New England and Long Island coasts and Hurricane Donna in 1960 along the Atlantic coast from Florida to the Long Island Sound were also followed by storm surges. In June, 1972, extremely heavy rainfall associated with a tropical storm inundated the basins of the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers of New York and Pennsylvania, causing severely damaging floods in Corning and Elmira, N.Y., and Wilkes-Barre and Harrisburg, Pa. In July, 1979, Hurricane Claudette deposited a U.S. record of 43 in. (109 cm) of rain in Alvin, Tex., in 24 hours. Hurricane Katrina in Aug., 2005, led to extensive and devastating storm-surge flooding along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, and the failure of several levees in the New Orleans area resulted in hundreds of deaths. The worst floods in the United States from river overflow were in 1913 on the Miami River (a tributary of the Ohio), in 1927, 1937, 1973, and 2011 on the Mississippi River and some of its tributaries, in 1935–36 on several New England rivers, and in 1993 on the Missouri, Mississippi, and some of their tributaries.
Bibliography
See P. Briggs, Rampage (1973); C. Clark, Flood (1982).
Flood,
in the Bible: see DelugeDeluge, in the Bible, the overwhelming flood that covered the earth and destroyed every living thing except the family of Noah and the creatures in his ark. Archaeology has yielded little trace of the biblical flood, but some oceanographers and geophysicists have speculated
..... Click the link for more information. .
Flood
the inundation of an area by water as a result of a rise in the water level of a river, lake, or sea owing to various factors.
A river may flood because of a sharp increase in the amount of water as a result of the melting of snow and glaciers in its basin or as a result of heavy precipitation. Many floods are caused by a rise in the water level when the river channel is jammed with ice owing to an ice drift (ice jam) or when the channel beneath an immobile sheet of ice is blocked by ice that accumulates under the sheet, forming a barrier.
Floods are often caused by winds that drive water inland from the sea, raising the level of a river by backing up the water at the mouth. This type of flood has occurred in Leningrad (1824 and 1924) and the Netherlands (1952). Along seashores and on islands floods may result from the inundation of the coastal zone by a wave formed during earthquakes or volcanic eruptions in the ocean (tsunamis). Floods of this type occur frequently on the shores of Japan and other Pacific islands. Breaks in dams or protective dikes may cause floods.
Floods occur on many rivers in Western Europe, including the Danube, the Seine, the Rhone, and the Po; on the Yangtze and Huang Ho in China; and on the Mississippi and Ohio in the USA. In the USSR there have been heavy floods on the Dnieper (1931) and the Volga (1908 and 1926). The most effective method of combating floods is the construction of reservoirs to regulate the flow of rivers.
What does it mean when you dream about a flood?
Because water is a universal symbol for the unconscious, a flood dream can indicate being overwhelmed by unconscious material, such as repressed emotions. It can also represent a feeling of being overwhelmed by circumstances in one’s life. Floods are related to initiation, in the sense that they can symbolize the destruction or washing away of the old in preparation for something new. Finally, a flood, as the bursting forth of fluids, can be a sexual symbol.