Humans and their relationship with flood events

Question 1

what do humans actions do to flood events?

Answer 1

they can increase the risk of flood events

Question 2

how do human actions increase the risk of a flood event?

Answer 2

population pressures
more people= more homes= roads and other facilities

Question 3

what are the possible human causes of floods?

Answer 3

deforetation
urban growth
poor urban planning/ mismanagement of rivers
farmland management

Question 4

what is a good example of a combination of the human causes of floof events?

Answer 4

river flooding in Bangladesh

Question 5

what is an exampe of mismanagement of rivers?

Answer 5

storm desmond caused severe floods in keswick on the river greta
a number of both physical and human factors (exacerbated by humans)

Question 6

what are the positive environmental impacts of flooding?

Answer 6

• recharge groundwater systems, fill wetlands, move sediment and nutrients around the landscape
• flood events will often trigger breeding, migration and dispersal for many species due nutrient abundance
• can also prevent future floods

Question 7

how can floods prevent future floods?

Answer 7

• floods can ditribute large amounts of water and suspended sediment over vast areas
• sediment help replenish valuable topsoil for agcricultural land and keep elevation of land mass above sea level

Question 8

where is an example of floods preventing flooding?

Answer 8

Mississippi delta

Question 9

how is the mississippi delta an example of floods preventing flooding?

Answer 9

before the river was controlled with levees in louisiana rivers would frequently spill their banks
this made the mississippi delta

Question 10

what is happening to the Mississippi delta today?

Answer 10

area today is slowly subsiding without the continued replenishment of sediment from river floods much of it has dropped to below natural sea level

Question 11

what are the main negative environmental impacts of flooding?

Answer 11

can cause eutrophication
wash chemicals, sewage and heavy metals into rivers

Question 12

what is eutrophication?

Answer 12

excessive richness of nutrients in a lake or other body of water, frequently due to run-off from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life.

Question 13

what is an example of the negative impacts of a flooding river? (Wales)

Answer 13

2012 cattle on a welsh farm died eating silage that had been cut form a contaminated filed months earlier form a flood
contamination came form historical metal mines in the area which flooded
bumble bees, ground beetles, earthworms bd other soil dwelling creature numbers were decimated