Floods
Floods are high-water stage in which water
overflows its natural or artificial banks onto normally dry land. The effects
of floods on human well-being range from unqualified blessings to catastrophes.
The regular seasonal spring floods of the Nile River prior to
construction of the Aswan High Dam, for example, were depended upon to provide
moisture and soil enrichment for the fertile floodplains of its delta. The
uncontrolled floods of the Yangtze
River and the Huang Ho in china,
however, have repeatedly wrought disaster when these rivers habitually rechart
their courses. Uncontrollable floods likely to cause considerable damage
commonly result from excessive rainfall over brief periods of time, as, for
example of Paris of Warsaw, of Frankfurt, am Main, and of Rome. Potentially
disastrous floods may, however, also result from ice jams during the spring
rise, as with the Danube River and the Neva River in Russia; from storm tides
such as those of 1099 and 1953 that flooded the coasts of England, Belgium, and
The Netherlands; and from tsunamis, the mountainous sea waves caused by
earthquakes, as in Lisbon and Hawaii and South-East Asia.
