Does whole concept of flood protection need to be re-thought?

Question

Because of ever increasing amounts of water in atmosphere and more and more land turned into roads or parking lots.

Houses in flood plain built on stilts, More rain water caught and stored to be released slowly.

Answer 1

I couldn't agree with your more, but builders and developers will always put profit first.

Answer 2

We do need to start recalculating flood probabilities since climate change has altered rain patterns.  I am not sure if everyone knows but the term '100 year flood' is just a probability of calculated from historical rain data.  It is the probability of a certain storm event creating enough water and then seeing the probability that will happen in a year.  

When there are 500 year floods it is almost impossible to prevent a lot of damage to the surrounding area.  It is too expensive to build levies that are large enough to stop floods of this magnitude.

What we need to do is stop building houses on floodplains even though they have great views.

Answer 3

Apart from the greed factor, and the fact that global warming is going to affect flood patterns; increasing urbanisation is also having an effect.  The concept of the '100 year flood level' has to be re-thought.  In many places, they are having '100 year floods' every decade or so; even though there is increasing drought.

One reason is because with increasing road building and particularly increased housing roof areas linked with increased stormwater control, there is much more stormwater passing to stream channels rather than being absorbed into the soil; making floods (particularly local flooding) when they do occur much worse.

Part of the answer may be in stormwater harvesting (important in times of increasing water shortages).

Answer 4

David C is right. The  whole concept of flood protection does NOT need to be re-thought, we have to curb our greed.

Answer 5

As an architect, building codes are sufficient to relieve flood pressures and protect buildings from collapse.  

I would agree that its greed that results in building devastation, whether thats the result of building in locations unsuitable for construction or skimping on the elements of the code designed for protection