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    Explain The Distribution of Flooding and Droughts

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    Ankit Bhambhaney
    Flooding is the most common environmental hazard worldwide, especially affecting river floodplains and low-lying coastal areas. Flooding can be caused by excessive rainfall, dam or levee failures, or storm surges from tropical cyclones. Bangladesh is especially prone to flooding due to heavy monsoon rains and factors like deforestation increasing silt in rivers. In contrast, droughts occur when water demand exceeds supply over a prolonged period. While drought can theoretically happen anywhere, the most severe droughts typically affect certain regions like parts of the US, Mexico, Southern Africa, East Africa, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Australia, Brazil, India, and China for various geographic and economic reasons.

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    Explain The Distribution of Flooding and Droughts

    Uploaded by

    Ankit Bhambhaney
    197 views2 pages
    Flooding is the most common environmental hazard worldwide, especially affecting river floodplains and low-lying coastal areas. Flooding can be caused by excessive rainfall, dam or levee failures, or storm surges from tropical cyclones. Bangladesh is especially prone to flooding due to heavy monsoon rains and factors like deforestation increasing silt in rivers. In contrast, droughts occur when water demand exceeds supply over a prolonged period. While drought can theoretically happen anywhere, the most severe droughts typically affect certain regions like parts of the US, Mexico, Southern Africa, East Africa, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Australia, Brazil, India, and China for various geographic and economic reasons.

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    Explain the Distribution of Flooding and Droughts

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    Flooding is the most common environmental hazard worldwide, especially affecting river floodplains and low-lying coastal areas. Flooding can be caused by excessive rainfall, dam or levee failures, or storm surges from tropical cyclones. Bangladesh is especially prone to flooding due to heavy monsoon rains and factors like deforestation increasing silt in rivers. In contrast, droughts occur when water demand exceeds supply over a prolonged period. While drought can theoretically happen anywhere, the most severe droughts typically affect certain regions like parts of the US, Mexico, Southern Africa, East Africa, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Australia, Brazil, India, and China for various geographic and economic reasons.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    197 views2 pages

    Explain The Distribution of Flooding and Droughts

    Uploaded by

    Ankit Bhambhaney
    Flooding is the most common environmental hazard worldwide, especially affecting river floodplains and low-lying coastal areas. Flooding can be caused by excessive rainfall, dam or levee failures, or storm surges from tropical cyclones. Bangladesh is especially prone to flooding due to heavy monsoon rains and factors like deforestation increasing silt in rivers. In contrast, droughts occur when water demand exceeds supply over a prolonged period. While drought can theoretically happen anywhere, the most severe droughts typically affect certain regions like parts of the US, Mexico, Southern Africa, East Africa, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Australia, Brazil, India, and China for various geographic and economic reasons.

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    Explain the Distribution of flooding and Droughts (15 marks)

    Flooding is the most common environmental hazard worldwide. This is due to the
    vast geographical distribution of river floodplains and low-lying coastal areas. A
    flood is an overflow of a large amount of water beyond its normal limits, especially
    over what is normally dry land.
    This encompasses the simple notion that a flood involves an excess of water
    compared with average water levels. Floods can be categorized as either river
    floods or coastal floods. River floods are often atmospherically driven, caused by
    excessive precipitation. They can also occur due to landslides falling into rivers, and
    by dam or levee failures. Coastal surges are often due to storm surges caused by
    tropical cyclones or tectonically produced tsunamis.
    River floodplains and coastal areas are the most susceptible to flooding, however, it
    is possible for flooding to occur in areas with unusually long periods of heavy
    rainfall. Bangladesh is the most flood prone area in the world. Bangladesh is
    vulnerable due to presence of a monsoon season which causes heavy rainfall. Other
    factors which have contributed to flooding are deforestation in Nepal which has
    caused soil erosion. This had led to the increased silt content in the rivers further
    downstream. This decreases the carrying capacity of the rivers, causing the peak
    flow of the river to increase.

    A notable example is In April 1993 parts of the Midwest received as much as 10


    times the normal amount of rainfall which swelled the Mississippi river and its 50
    tributaries. The tributaries fill when the Mississippi river rises causing local floods of
    small to medium magnitudes.
    The water overwhelmed levees, erased towns and destroyed other infrastructures
    such as bridges and airports. The flood killed 45 people, displaced 50,000 people
    and inundated 13.5 million acres of land. The Mississippi river had been altered and
    re-directed in the 1970s. Dams and levees were built to deal with the changes in the
    river capacity. Federal government built dams and levees stayed intact during the
    1993 flood, however, 70% of the constructions built by the private sector failed.
    Another example Between July and October 1998 prolonged floods affected two
    thirds of the country at their worst and lasted two and half months. Environmental
    coincidences such as El Nino in 1997 and La Nina in 1998 caused an increased
    rainfall during the monsoon season in Bangladesh and in the catchment areas of the
    Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers in Nepal and India.
    The floods peaked on the 14th September, by then more than 1,500 people had
    died, 23 million people were homeless. The flooding was worsened by the
    construction of impermeable surfaces such as roads, bridges and homes that
    interfered with drainage patterns, increasing surface run off. Deforestation in Nepal
    is also thought to have had an effect on the extent of the flooding due to increased
    silt content in the river system, causing an increased amount of water to travel
    downstream.

    Because a drought is a prolonged period where the demand for water exceeds
    supply (water stress) then droughts can technically happen anywhere in the world.
    However, the most severe droughts tend to be located in certain areas of the world
    Parts of the US and Mexico and Southern Africa also suffer from droughts. The
    causes of droughts might not always be the same. North Africa and the Arabian
    Peninsula are very arid, but because of the low population densities they don't
    suffer from regular droughts. Australia normally suffers droughts because of
    physical water scarcity (shortage of rain), whereas Brazil, India and China are more
    likely to suffer from economic water scarcity.
    Some droughts may only last one season, but some like the ongoing drought in East
    African can last many years.

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