Those of us in the Permaculture and ecological design community have been hollering and beating pots and pans about this for twenty years, it is SO FRUSTRATING that it took this long for this topic to make it into more mainstream conversations but it's so great to see folks finally talking about this issue and working on better urban design. Now let's find a way to put that water back into the use cycle, or at least into soil storage, and not just sending it out into the ocean.
The parts of the world that need it most desperately are rural areas in poor countries or towns and cities being swallowed by gullies sprouting up everywhere from extreme rain. Integrating green zones that can feed, water, shelter and provide materials for residents also insulates them from the onset of food system collapse (which the world increasing faces risk of). Think Ukraine + Corona but on steroids. Communities that have so far prepared for resilience adapted better to Covid lockdowns. The new republic has a series on the topic.
One frustrating life lesson I've learned is something usually has to become a big problem or tragedy before it's addressed. The more disruption and/or death an event causes, the quicker the response.
I work in agriculture in the midwest; our planting seasons have been very inconsistent the last five years. Last year we had very little rain for the entirety of the year; this year, we’ve gotten 6 inches of rain in the last three days. The soil wasn’t ready for it and we’ve had some flooding. We don’t till our land and have a lot of soil conservation practices we follow, but our neighbors have had terrible erosion and it’s filling up the ditches we share, and it’s impossible to get out to some of the fields to get things set up because of how muddy it is. I worry that farmers will be seeing another inconsistent season this year. Recency bias is certainly there but when I ask older folks in the community, they acknowledge that the weather has been “off”, but they get upset if you imply the climate has something to do with it. I’m not versed enough in meteorology to tell either way.
@@Raylen_Fa-ield Yes there is. What oh what could it be? It’s not like scientist for decades ago correctly, forecasted such events, owing to climate change.
@boxsterman77 a lot of the farming crowd under the age of 40 is pretty good about acknowledging climate change. Lot of the older cats just refuse no matter what the see.
The UK has had the wettest 18 months in history and farmers are warning of significant food production issues. Can't plant crops, seed potatoes rotting in the ground. Gonna be a fun year...
I'm living through a flood right now. Southern Brazil state of Rio Grande do Sul. We had 600mm of rainfall in three days. This is horrible. Hundreds of people died. Thousands lost their homes.
So sorry for your loss and the tragedy and horror you are living through. Floods and droughts will severely impacts human's ability to grow, store, and transport food.
Mitigation efforts like retention ponds and rain gardens work really well. They are also nice additions to park spaces. We know they work, and we should be creating more of them. You can even create rain gardens at home if you have the space. It's better to get the water to seep into the soil than to enter an overburdened sewer system
@@JokerLurver for now the critters keep the pests pretty well in check but with our recent rains that might change I’d still think a living ecosystem to be better suited to having checks and balances than a suburban sprawl
While this focuses on the USA in particular Canada has also seen huge changes. Living in Halifax, Nova Scotia I have seen huge changes in our weather over the last twenty or more years. The pace of the change in weather has also quickened. Last year I was evacuated when fire burned down 200 homes on the edge of the city. Yet only a few months later we had huge floods washing out roads and flooding many neighborhoods. My concern is the lack of proactive thinking with urban development here in Halifax.
You're not alone, we here on the west coast have similar problems. We seem to swing between drought, and flood, with the dryness making the ground fairly impermeable, and then the water has nowhere to go.
You can t adapt to changes this fast. Urban planning is on a 20years span. In 20years climat in canada will be drastically different from now... And it is hard to say how precisely except that it will be very chaotic.
We weren’t required to have flood insurance because our area wasn’t considered a flood zone. Until Hurricane Harvey drowned Galveston & Dickinson. We had a foot of water in our house & fish in our front yard. Never lost power, oddly enough. Our area is about 20-25 years old, a newer subdivision, and they built several retention ponds around us that worked great until Harvey overwhelmed everything. I’ve lived here for 45years & I’ve been through many hurricanes & tropical storms (TS Allison, H. Alicia, H. Ike etc). I’ve never seen flooding higher than the curb until Harvey.
The detention ponds built for your neighborhood don't really serve your neighborhood, they attempt to protect people downstream. Some street flooding to curb level is generally considered acceptable in the Houston area and acts as temporary water storage.
Thank you for covering this topic. As a hydrologist, it has been sad to observe the level of ignorance on what has been occurring for decades. The added benefit of infiltrating runoff is recharge of aquifers…of which many are overdrafted.
I live in Ft. Lauderdale. We got 26 inches in less than 24 hours. Climate change is already here. Twice we have had a once in 1000 year event. Unfortunately it was the last 2 years. I bet we get another in the next 365 days.
We have a rain garden, for which we got a rebate from the city, to help manage rain events. Other people use water tanks. This not only helps take water away from the under capacity city system, it also directs water away from our foundations, which is one of the biggest water damage risks right here. It's also the nicest part of our garden right now :) Some streets around us also have rain gardens, and some new buildings are putting similar features in, which must help (and the street ones also have the effect of filtering out oil and tyre residue which would otherwise enter the local waterways).
Thinking about this makes me remember the city I grew up in - Midland Texas. We all joked about "The River Wadley" - one specific street, Wadley Avenue, consistently flooded every single time there was a thunderstorm. I was too young to understand then WHY the flooding happened, but Midland is smack in the middle of the desert! Annual precip was usually less than 12 inches I think. However, all that dry, dry land becomes hard as rock when it's dry for nine months straight... and that's why flash floods were always such a huge risk, everywhere in the city, even though the storm drains were HUGE. Where I am now there are lots of creeks and green, but the water table's pretty damn high and the soil is almost fifty-fifty clay/sand. The sand drains great, the clay doesn't, and it averages out to something that the city infrastructure can handle. Barely. As things get worse I expect that we'll see more and more flooding, and I hope like hell our city planners are paying attention to what's happening in far away places like NYC. We're nowhere near that built up obviously, this is Mississippi, everyone loves having green around them and there's quite a strong dedication to NOT paving over everything. But that doesn't mean we don't have problem areas, I can think of at LEAST two schools whose parking lots become lakes when it's a bad storm. I've heard about lots of materials science trying to develop permeable pavements and other things that will act more like sponges and allow better control of runoff, but I'm praying that such things become super cheap super quick.
This is why when you make ANYTHING that's going to last long term, you should always think sustainability. For urban planning this is especially important cause not only do you have to worry about erosion, but you also have to worry about how the environment is going to change.
Roughly every 25-50 years we get a catastrophic flood in my town in West Virginia (north central). The last one was in 1985 in which is still have Polaroid pictures of my father, back then a young man, rescuing residents from atop their roofs in a raggedy row boat. That same boat still sits under our car port, where my dad and I have maintained it since I was a kid just in case the town needs a hero again.
I love all the series Maiya has been covering. I'm studying emergency management and about to start an internship with the state, so hearing about new and updated data like First Street has me excited about creating forward-thinking and equitable solutions.
George Costanza got really worried once when he peed in his bathtub while taking a shower and he wondered if it was OK to do and Jerry told him the sewer was all connected it didn't make any difference but I don't think George calmed down? I think n it probably doesn't matter like Jerry said it's all connected.
Much of the problem with flooding in drylands is dry, compacted soil, with the biota withered or deeply challenged. Adding raingardens and bioswales is a cheap way to increase flood resiliency instead of expanding stormdrains. It reduces ground subsidence which harms concrete structures, recharges watertables, regreens, reduces pollution and streetside trash, etc.
Heck, just reintroduce beavers into these areas and let them do the work. These little architects are so much better at it than we are. Also what you said though.
@TyPaff We can finesse our own ranch/farm/property, neighborhood, city etc instead of waiting for "return of the beavers." Beavers need an existing habitat of usable trees to be able to build water harvesting structures, so their reintroduction is of limited utility. WE can exert immediate effect upon places that are away from woodlands to rebuild the watertable so beavers can be reintroduced at a later date. Beaverdams have zero capacity in a cityscape. Raingardens, bioswales,checkdams immediately have positive impact in the environments they are placed as well as reduce flooding, drought, pollution impacts as well as increase carbon sequestration, add beauty, reduce utility costs/impacts, etc...
My community has been stupid about flood awareness. We have a spillway going through the southern end of town and they decided to build houses on gravel along the spillway. Everyone knows the second we have a flood all those houses will instantly be washed away...
A similar thing happened in Houston. They built flood retention areas that serve as parks when it's not raining. People limed the area and built nice houses towards the rear area of the facilities. So when Harvey hit Houston, the city had to decide between holding more water and flooding the nice expensive houses behind the retention area and releasing water on the cheaper houses below the retention area outlet... I think you know which one they chose lol.
This even happens in the Netherlands. Southern City of Venlo built their brand new Hospital right out in the Floodplain, narrowing the flood channel of Meuse river by nearly half a mile, which in flood carries over 3500 cubic meters per second (about 12.350 cubic feet). Nearly caused the levees to overflow during the 2021 torrential floods which in Germany took over 180 lives. Hospital had the waters right under its lowest windows. G knows what happens if next time rains are yet heavier. 100 year floods ? More like 20 years today.
My community in MN pays its citizens to install raingardens on their property. We've seen reactions in flooding and increased water quality in our lakes. Plus they're pretty.
Civil engineer here. Most flood modeling sucked, even before climate change increased. Most drainage regulations are still focused on protecting the property owners immediately downstream from excessive peak flows which could cause erosion. They don't do much on a larger scale to protect communities further downstream. To keep the calculations somewhat simple, a typical rainfall distribution is usually assumed. But in the last 10 or 15 years the capability exists to do continuous modeling. Instead of examining a few hypothetical rainfall scenarios, all flood modeling should ideally use real historical rainfall data. You then "play back" actual rainfall data, potentially decades worth, into the model and look for problems. Another thing that people are missing I believe is that the urban heat island effect is acting much like a mountain range to increase rainfall locally. As system of cloudy weather approaches a big city on a hot sunny day, there is a lot of instability and the leading edge of the weather system can be pushed higher into the atmosphere where it cools rapidly and quickly condenses out water as intense rainfall.
good points, there should be enough tools to nail out what can be done and what isn't worth it: sometimes the place is just doomed in a 5/10 years span and the hard decision to leave an area removed of buildings need to be made
In my hometown, Perry, Georgia (US) We had a huge flood during a stalled tropical system in 1993 and it rained heavy for 3 days. And every dam in the area busted and luckily our little town is on a hill but the surrounding areas were really affected. We were stranded for weeks as all the roads outta town were washed out. After that, our county hired engineers and planners and built a state of the art dam that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Instead of a wall.. it’s a row of big cement horizonal pyramids. And it’s never had issues again. Also they got the county to put retention ponds at the end of every parking lot, and we haven’t had flooding since
All works well as long as flood installments are kept free and maintenance. But if nothing serious happens over 15 years local boards often decide they have better uses for the money, they can use those nice greens for expensive housing projects and such. Until the next 100 year event, which in climate change, could well be here within 25 years. But then, it will be the next elected official's responsibility
While watching this, I keep thinking of the ongoing demand for greater housing density in urban centers. Here in Minneapolis, we’re building a lot of new apartments/condos on old, often abandoned industrial land. But perhaps some of that land should be used for green space and water retention instead. And south Minneapolis isn’t even a flood zone for the most part! I can imagine this same argument in a place like Houston, with much worse outcomes.
Macon county N.C. is currently deliberating on May 2, 2024 on whether to change the Little Tennessee River floodplain ordinance to allow fill dirt. A few officials think our county is too strict and should be equal to the rest of the State. The Little Tennessee is unique among Southern rivers in that it still has much of its freshwater biodiversity still intact. It is our strict local regulations that protect it.
I'm very glad I live in a place that received one of the highest 24 hour rainfall totals in American history back in the 1990s (a thunderstorm got "pinned" in place and just dumped all its rain on my area). Because of that, all new developments since then have such great flood mitigation infrastructure that when we get bad flash floods, life more or less continues as normal and you just drive a lot slower.
It’s so unfortunate that bad things have to happen FIRST before action is taken . My state does a lot of this too and you definitely notice it during storms
I had Jim Cantore come to my town in KY to talk about the increase in tornadoes and floods. It was really scary, seeing how fast our local weather is changing.
My street used to flood all the time. Since the local government installed a half dozen water collecting basins with big drains and absorbent plants, it hasn't flooded once.
... Which will last about as long as there's folk on the local boards with the insight and wisdom such installations need be maintained to function. After couple dry seasons, they may just think -we can use good money elsewhere. Next thing you know, your floods are back in force.
Maryland has a lot of good regulations with regard to development building . The land they purchase , a certain percentage has to be left undeveloped, usually the low lying part which are wetlands . This has significantly reduced flooding when we get storms . Or when we do get flooding , it clears out very soon after an event. The don’t know why it’s so hard to grasp working WITH nature and not against it . Mother Nature doesn’t play and always wins
My city of Dover, NH unsuccessfully attempted to pass what many ignorantly referred to as a "rain tax" as a way to generate and dedicate funds to restructuring our infrastructure to handle large volumes of water (much of NH is touchy about the idea of taxes). Our city sits only 49 feet (just shy of 15 metres) above sea level and has one of New Hampshire's major tributaries to the tidal Piscataqua River, and we have been seeing some significant flooding begin to become a routine issue (in the past two years I have witnessed the Cocheco River out of it's banks five times, and in the past four years that I have been living at my condo community which sits just a few feet higher, the parking lot has flooded four times, three of which resulted in the loss of personal property, mostly vehicles. Being in a tidal area, we get a double whammy from the tides and flooding.
"I use the word 'exponentially' because I was taught it in math class and that was the first sentence I could use it in. 'Exponentially worse' means crappier and crappier and crappier." - Lewis Black
Wow. That wealth gap difference is insane. As well, I really didn't think Atlanta was gonna be THAT bad. Terribly sad that crisis compounds an ongoing crisis.
I count myself as beyond lucky. Running water has always scared me, having grown up in a house built on the site of a gristmill. The millrace had been buried underground several decade did not change the fact that during heavy rains water still used the old millrace. When I found my "new home" the first thing I researched was site elevation. I am 20' off the highest elevation in the county, two miles from the nearest perennial stream and more than 300' and 20 miles from the lowest elevation. I sleep soundly during thunderstorms. I count myself lucky.
Vermont, rural area. After three times our cellar was flooded, because the Gilbert's were too small. The town replaced them and we used granite to create areas in the river to slow down the water. We also built berms on the front yard to avert water runoff from the road. So far so good! The 180 year old farmhouse would have moved into the river from erosion for sure.😊
In Vermont we are dealing with major flooding state wide. I live on lake champlain and in 2010 and 2011 lake champlain flooded. That's entirely different then river flooding. The levies up the richaleau river to Montreal almost failed and that region flooded. Lake champlain flows north. So the issue in my region is tremendous as lake champlain is the 6th largest lake in the lower 48 .
I feel like the move from Boston to Portland last year was probably a good call, aside from Cascadia.😉 The city of Portland is much more environmentally prepared for flood issues. The city infrastructure to promote natural rainwater drainage is like nothing I've seen before here.
I moved to PDX from DC almost 20 yrs ago and yes, we are much more progressive in many ways, since it rains a lot. But the overdue/looming Cascadia quake is still a huge concern that most infrastructure here isn't ready for.
Part of the reason why portland looks great is because we have 13 flood control dams in the upper Willamette basin. Portland, and the people of the Willamette Valley in general, realized back in the 50s that life near the river was always going to plagued with large floods unless they could stop it. It's had some bad environmental impacts for animals but no matter how many people sue the dams, they will never be removed as long as potential flooding could cause damage to hillman life and the economy.
@Firefenex1996 I watched a couple of documentary films about this, the Vanport history especially was a great example of what can go wrong. Klamath gives some hope of change, or at least more thoughtful ideas that work with nature, not fighting to "conquer" nature. That is fighting ourselves in reality.
@MikeyfromBOS yeah. I had to comment just to provide context that the real flood stopper are the dams, but I do agree with everything you said. I won't bore people with my environmental ideas too much lol.
Honestly, here in my working class city in Massachusetts, we keep building and building in green spaces. A sprawling industrial park with lots of forest that was built on a swamp back in the 1940's is expanding and those forested area are now buildings and parking lots, so I am concerned. The ground water levels are frequently just inches below concrete slab foundations. I live not far from there, only 100 meters from the river, but I have mitigated my risk. unlike my neighbors I kept all my trees, and I divert my roof runoff to a small artificial pond, wish a designed overflow with indigenous wetland plants. My next door neighbors cut down their back yard trees so his children would have a backyard to play in, regardless of my warnings to them. They had standing water in the spring for a few days each spring, before they cut the trees. Now it's a about a month of standing water... I think he may have unintentionally created a vernal pond, but I haven't seen an increase in the amphibian population yet.
We really should know better up in New England; while things have gotten more extreme, it's not like we've never had to deal with severe precipitation before. A farmer across from my parents sold his land to a housing developer, they put in all the required safeties in the design to protect the wetlands and streams over there, but they had to move the foundation of one house 3 times because the holes they dug filled with groundwater every time it rained. And it's only gotten wetter over there since my parents moved in 20 years ago.
Thank you for continuing to spread this information! It needs more attention, and we need more sources to combat the climate science deniers (and the spread of misinformation)
Some cities, like Chicago are well prepared to handle large and intense rainstorms. The city was raised 14 feet and the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan when completed will be able to hold 17 billion gallons of water! Adding additional mitigation like those discussed in the video will further strengthen the city's ability to manage large storms.
Just wanted to inform you that southeast of Australia there is a small country called New Zealand. We have had major rain events that your chart does not show.
0:45 and this is the part most people don't realize... I don't know how many people I've talked to who thought that there should only be one 100-year flood in 100 years 😅 While I was dictating this comment, my roommate literally had the misunderstanding 😂😂😂😂
Maybe the concept should be better named? Not everyone is a meteorologist or disaster manager. 🤷♀️ (Percent chance of precipitation is similarly misunderstood.) Not really a laughing matter when lay people cannot properly assess their risk because what _sounds_ (and is presented as) "obvious" is actually nuanced.
@@brettany_renee_blatchleymaybe they should start paying attention in school and actually learning and putting effort into being educated. Statistics is not some insane high level math. It can be but most people can benefit from just taking a basic statistics class in high school or college or even just on your own. Plenty of free material out there
My daughter lived in Surprise Arizona for awhile when it was newly built. They had catchment ponds, parks when not flooded, and that kept them from flooding. They were grassy and the kids played there. Some neighbors in the Phoenix area were built with the yards sloped the wrong way... Towards the house instead of away from it. Those people had to sue the city for allowing the contractor to build like that.aa
I'm in northern PA, and we had farming communities devastated by flooding from Debbie this summer. Many farmers had complete loss of crops as well as significant loss of fencing and livestock.
In Horry County South Carolina after the 20 inches of rain in the fall of 2018 it took TWO YEARS for the swamp lands and water table to recover to the normal level of flooding 🎉
I recently got tied into the sewer system from a septic tank and I spent a ton of time working the ground adding grass to hold the dirt back my parent have a duplex ranch so they collapsed (2) 1000 gal tanks and left a huge depression now it went from steep neglected dessert dry to perfectly graded smooth green rolling grass
My community has similar problems. A lot of marshlands being converted into neighborhoods. All the water has to go somewhere. And it's even more important with houses along rivers and creeks.
One can pump dry water logged areas as much as they want, they remain the lowest lying areas around. As soon as the 100 year event hits, they become wet land again, whether houses been built or not. Folks who bought m will complain though, "the community hasn't done enough", blah blah. And demand good money to be paid to keep dry an area which basically _was_ a natural retention basin.
I think not understanding the concept of 100 year events might be why so many people have doubts about climate change. Yes, these kinds of events have always been happening...just nowhere near on this scale or frequency.
1:21 - Correct; this is an exponential function called the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. As you can visibly see in the graph, it's not strongly exponential. It accelerates, but it's at a moderate rate. That's because although the temperature variable is within the exponent, it appears both as a numerator (where it multiplies) and denominator (where it adds). So, it partially cancels itself and thus moderates the acceleration. 2:43 - NYC's water system is generally prepared for 3 inches of rain, just not within an hour. I'd rephrase it as the city is not prepared for storms that bring several inches of rain, or bring rainfall rates exceeding an inch or two per hour. 4:27 - The floodplains align "pretty much identically" with the green areas but not the blue areas. What are the green areas? 4:47 - The map accounts for flooding from rainstorms. It doesn't account for flooding from today's heaviest rainstorms. 5:07 - Ida could've been shown as a letter L for a low pressure system, rather than as a hurricane, when it got north of Mississippi. It was below tropical storm level at that point, and it transformed into a mid latitude storm starting in Kentucky. (Even when it restrengthened a bit over NJ and NY, it was still post-tropical. Once a tropical storm goes post-tropical, it stays post-tropical.)
Learned a new term yesterday = water whiplash. Super heavy rains in one area and extreme drought 200 miles away. In the Dallas area we experienced tons more rain this year than average until mid June and it just stopped. The ground looks like it hasn't rained in a year because we are now at 100 degrees
There's no question that we need to revamp how we analyze rainfall in our changing world, but after sponsoring a paper published in PNAS (which contained some questionable conclusions) imploring the implementation of a "Category 6" hurricane instead of revising the Saffir-Simpson Scale, a la the way the Fujita Scale was revised and implemented in 2007, I've begun to take any assertions from First Street Foundation with a grain of salt, at the very least. Their work, in part or in whole, can be used to contribute to the greater good of these efforts.
Here in the east Coast of America, 100 miles inland NYS. It has been raining since December. Basically snowed , a little bit, twice since December of 2023. All the other storms were rain storms.
Sounds like my country, where Ex pat workers (foreigner with high, specialized education) get a 30% tax cut, which ends up in pushing up house prices. Plus, house buyers get to the deduct their mortgage rent from tax payments, also keeping house prices high. Govt solution is, as you say, build build build. My country however is the Netherlands, mist of the housing in below sea level areas, which need increasing protection as sea level rise, which also means river dikes have to be reinforced, as river levels follow sea level. For every foot higher, the costs of reinforcements double . .
Must be noted that storm water systems are designed based on a statistic model from historical weather records, we were missing information to begin with so the systems could have been "somewhat off" from the beginning. Weather is not uniform, we go over periods of macro change as well.
Sorry, this is off topic but the host Maiya May is so pretty! There's something calming about how she speaks so I was able to listen through the whole video and learned a lot as a result!
Maiya May, thank you so much for this amazingly comprehensive video. Water, being the most precious yet destructive resource on our planet, you would think it would be much better managed than it is.
Sewer worker here. Our plant was catastrophically flooded causing damage we are still recovering from. Also it's infuriating dealing with deceptive local bills named things like "Save the Coast" or "Protecting Coastal Lands" (houses, they mean houses) which are actively eroding the coastline. People vote yes for them thinking the proposal is helping the environment when in reality the seawalls are made to protect wealthy coastal properties and are responsible for accelerating coastal erosion in adjacent areas.
I live in Toronto and every time I see one of these climate change maps I wish they extended juuuust a bit further north so that we can see what the upcoming risks are too. However, I'm still glad for this content cus it reminds me that weather is definitely changing
In general, I'd say Canada is in a far more advantageous situation than USA, but in it's southern reaches, perhaps not. Plus, If we get weakening AMOC, Canada winters may turn for the bad. But a weaker AMOC will hurt USA much more.
Tell your tundra not to fart permafrost stored greenhouse gases into my atmosphere and we’ll consider learning where Toronto is so we can include it on the map
That risk map? I can tell you why there's a statistical difference in risk between two counties - parishes here in Louisiana - that are immediately adjacent to each other. In Caddo Parish, which is in the extreme northwest corner of the state bordering with Texas and Arkansas, there's comparatively little residential development alongside the Red River or its tributaries (like Twelve Mile Bayou). We still have flooding problems, and yes, they're more frequent in communities of color. That's still a social and economic problem that needs to be better addressed. But, on the other side of the river in Bossier Parish - the darker blue one right next to Caddo - you have entire subdivisions built alongside Red Chute Bayou. And the builders KNEW it was prone to flooding! I know because I worked briefly in home construction and got out of it. They didn't like it when you brought up flooding events from the late 90's and 2001. And whaddayou know, it flooded again. And those claims show up in the new map. Don't trust contractors to give you an honest risk assessment. As long as they get their money they'll leave you to face the consequences. If we want that to change we have to demand regulation. No industry likes regulations but they still need them.
What a powerful documentary! Thank you for revealing what led to this escalating problem. As well as one practical solution. I'm glad the racial and economic inequalities are brought out.
The severity of climate change is getting worsen years after years, the world pays higher prices for climate disasters. The awareness of people to take immediate action by mitigation of climate change is a solution to save our planet.
I live in the Hampton roads area of Virginia it floods every time it rains no matter if it’s a short or long storm. I’ve lived here since 2013 and it’s gets worst every year smh
Here on the Oregon Coast, when I was young, it would flood every Thanksgiving really bad.But the last 25 years or so it just doesn't flood as bad. We have a lot of rain, but not flooding rain. Will it one day return? Most likely. We survived it before and we will survive it again,,,,,,,,,,
Our Sarasota county in Florida raise some our roads to 5ft high hurricane in 2022 it flooded the main road connected to i=75 highway so county handover the old two lane road to make it into 4lane road. And building a emergency hurricane side route.
Just last summer, my city suffered an unheard of rainfall. So much came down so fast that our sewer systems couldn't keep up. My 10-minute drive home took almost an hour, and it had me trying to circumvent several massive "puddles" that I was afraid might stall my car. Unfortunately, these small lakes were at pretty much every intersection and small valley in the road. Our area (se Wisconsin) has a lot of small hills.
How are we doing? I live in Louisville, so apparently let we aren’t doing well. A lot of the “standard” flooding in Louisville is around creeks and the Ohio river waterfront areas, and a lot of those places are in parks and the newly implemented riverfront green space. Water is an issue, but local leaders seem to be doing a pretty good job based on what I’ve seen in the last 14 years. No complaints from me.
This video came right before the record rains that flooded Rio Grande do Sul state in Brazil. There was a big flood in 1873. Water level reached 3.8 meters. (3 meters being flooding levels. Another in 1941 when the water reached 4.7 meters. Now after 80 years, a record flood of 5.3 meters. Worse, the state has suffered 4 floods in the last year. This one the worse. By far. EVER, in the history of the state. Before anyone says anything, the state is over 2000km south of the Amazon and there is a whole savannah like ecosystem south of the Amazon. So it's not this state (over 2/3 of it covered by natural grasslands) that is to blame. Furthermore, it is the Amazonian humid weather that provoked the rains, as it did it's counter clockwise motion in the southern hemisphere, blocked by the Andes, then south, then east again... and then trapped over Rio Grande do Sul by a MASSIVE HOT DRY HIGH PRESSURE air mass central Brazil that acted as a wall. The humid air trapped over the southernmost state, then Antartic and Patagonian cold air masses came north and condensed that humidity that fell in a huge area over 400 mm in a couple of days, over 700 mm in some areas.
great summary, the stakes look real bad, to the point to consider plain forfeit of some cities in more vulnerable areas to be reallocate as it may not be worth rebuilding there only to be washed out again in a few years
Those of us in the Permaculture and ecological design community have been hollering and beating pots and pans about this for twenty years, it is SO FRUSTRATING that it took this long for this topic to make it into more mainstream conversations but it's so great to see folks finally talking about this issue and working on better urban design. Now let's find a way to put that water back into the use cycle, or at least into soil storage, and not just sending it out into the ocean.
The parts of the world that need it most desperately are rural areas in poor countries or towns and cities being swallowed by gullies sprouting up everywhere from extreme rain. Integrating green zones that can feed, water, shelter and provide materials for residents also insulates them from the onset of food system collapse (which the world increasing faces risk of). Think Ukraine + Corona but on steroids. Communities that have so far prepared for resilience adapted better to Covid lockdowns. The new republic has a series on the topic.
One frustrating life lesson I've learned is something usually has to become a big problem or tragedy before it's addressed. The more disruption and/or death an event causes, the quicker the response.
I was teaching this to middle school students 15 years ago as part of an ecology class. They got it.
@@spamcan9208 unless it's gun violence
Storm water management it wasn't. Climate is fine. PBS is phaque knews.
I work in agriculture in the midwest; our planting seasons have been very inconsistent the last five years. Last year we had very little rain for the entirety of the year; this year, we’ve gotten 6 inches of rain in the last three days. The soil wasn’t ready for it and we’ve had some flooding.
We don’t till our land and have a lot of soil conservation practices we follow, but our neighbors have had terrible erosion and it’s filling up the ditches we share, and it’s impossible to get out to some of the fields to get things set up because of how muddy it is.
I worry that farmers will be seeing another inconsistent season this year. Recency bias is certainly there but when I ask older folks in the community, they acknowledge that the weather has been “off”, but they get upset if you imply the climate has something to do with it. I’m not versed enough in meteorology to tell either way.
Last year Florida coastal water was at a surface temp of 100° for days. There certainly is something off about the weather.
Are you and your fellow farmers still calling climate change a hoax? Are they voting for those who say that to?
@@Raylen_Fa-ield Yes there is. What oh what could it be? It’s not like scientist for decades ago correctly, forecasted such events, owing to climate change.
@boxsterman77 a lot of the farming crowd under the age of 40 is pretty good about acknowledging climate change. Lot of the older cats just refuse no matter what the see.
The UK has had the wettest 18 months in history and farmers are warning of significant food production issues. Can't plant crops, seed potatoes rotting in the ground. Gonna be a fun year...
I'm living through a flood right now. Southern Brazil state of Rio Grande do Sul. We had 600mm of rainfall in three days. This is horrible. Hundreds of people died. Thousands lost their homes.
Novo Hamburgo here.
Canoas here 😢
So sorry for your loss and the tragedy and horror you are living through. Floods and droughts will severely impacts human's ability to grow, store, and transport food.
😭
Mitigation efforts like retention ponds and rain gardens work really well. They are also nice additions to park spaces. We know they work, and we should be creating more of them. You can even create rain gardens at home if you have the space. It's better to get the water to seep into the soil than to enter an overburdened sewer system
The retention pond near me has become a haven for wildlife and a lovely biking and hiking space, and we haven’t had road flooding since it went in
Pervious concrete can be used for walkways as well.
I agree, just wondering if there's any hazard of increased malaria risk.
@@JokerLurver for now the critters keep the pests pretty well in check but with our recent rains that might change
I’d still think a living ecosystem to be better suited to having checks and balances than a suburban sprawl
But why build a nice green park when you can have your 5th Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in the street?
While this focuses on the USA in particular Canada has also seen huge changes. Living in Halifax, Nova Scotia I have seen huge changes in our weather over the last twenty or more years. The pace of the change in weather has also quickened. Last year I was evacuated when fire burned down 200 homes on the edge of the city. Yet only a few months later we had huge floods washing out roads and flooding many neighborhoods.
My concern is the lack of proactive thinking with urban development here in Halifax.
You're not alone, we here on the west coast have similar problems.
We seem to swing between drought, and flood, with the dryness making the ground fairly impermeable, and then the water has nowhere to go.
More severe weather coming up from the south, more frequently. And NS is in the path.
You can t adapt to changes this fast. Urban planning is on a 20years span.
In 20years climat in canada will be drastically different from now... And it is hard to say how precisely except that it will be very chaotic.
Native New Yorker here. This is extremely important and scary information... but I just can't get over the way Maiya says "Hoboken" 💀
haven't lived in NJ in thirty years and I was still twitching every time...
At first, I thought she said HaDoKen, like in the Street Fighter games. 🤣
Get over it
I'm from LA and I'm with you on Hoboken.
I adore her as a science communicator but each time I heard it I was like 🥴… awesome Terra segment tho!!
We weren’t required to have flood insurance because our area wasn’t considered a flood zone.
Until Hurricane Harvey drowned Galveston & Dickinson. We had a foot of water in our house & fish in our front yard. Never lost power, oddly enough.
Our area is about 20-25 years old, a newer subdivision, and they built several retention ponds around us that worked great until Harvey overwhelmed everything.
I’ve lived here for 45years & I’ve been through many hurricanes & tropical storms (TS Allison, H. Alicia, H. Ike etc). I’ve never seen flooding higher than the curb until Harvey.
The detention ponds built for your neighborhood don't really serve your neighborhood, they attempt to protect people downstream. Some street flooding to curb level is generally considered acceptable in the Houston area and acts as temporary water storage.
Thank you for covering this topic. As a hydrologist, it has been sad to observe the level of ignorance on what has been occurring for decades.
The added benefit of infiltrating runoff is recharge of aquifers…of which many are overdrafted.
When you suddenly get several weeks worth of rainfall in a few hours..
I live in Ft. Lauderdale. We got 26 inches in less than 24 hours. Climate change is already here. Twice we have had a once in 1000 year event. Unfortunately it was the last 2 years. I bet we get another in the next 365 days.
Ice bucket challenge gold medalists
statistic buzzwords.
12:00 @@robertrowe9832
@riz Yeah right. Don't look up! It's just a statistical buzzword.. those with their head hiding in a hole in the ground will drown first..
We have a rain garden, for which we got a rebate from the city, to help manage rain events. Other people use water tanks.
This not only helps take water away from the under capacity city system, it also directs water away from our foundations, which is one of the biggest water damage risks right here.
It's also the nicest part of our garden right now :)
Some streets around us also have rain gardens, and some new buildings are putting similar features in, which must help (and the street ones also have the effect of filtering out oil and tyre residue which would otherwise enter the local waterways).
in the netherlands we have rain gardens everywhere and they are still making more. also a lot of farm land gets turned into flood plains and marshes
In America we have maga which can’t think rationally
@@thefpvlife7785yikes, maga doesn’t determine rain gardens lmao.
Thinking about this makes me remember the city I grew up in - Midland Texas. We all joked about "The River Wadley" - one specific street, Wadley Avenue, consistently flooded every single time there was a thunderstorm. I was too young to understand then WHY the flooding happened, but Midland is smack in the middle of the desert! Annual precip was usually less than 12 inches I think. However, all that dry, dry land becomes hard as rock when it's dry for nine months straight... and that's why flash floods were always such a huge risk, everywhere in the city, even though the storm drains were HUGE.
Where I am now there are lots of creeks and green, but the water table's pretty damn high and the soil is almost fifty-fifty clay/sand. The sand drains great, the clay doesn't, and it averages out to something that the city infrastructure can handle. Barely. As things get worse I expect that we'll see more and more flooding, and I hope like hell our city planners are paying attention to what's happening in far away places like NYC. We're nowhere near that built up obviously, this is Mississippi, everyone loves having green around them and there's quite a strong dedication to NOT paving over everything. But that doesn't mean we don't have problem areas, I can think of at LEAST two schools whose parking lots become lakes when it's a bad storm.
I've heard about lots of materials science trying to develop permeable pavements and other things that will act more like sponges and allow better control of runoff, but I'm praying that such things become super cheap super quick.
This is why when you make ANYTHING that's going to last long term, you should always think sustainability. For urban planning this is especially important cause not only do you have to worry about erosion, but you also have to worry about how the environment is going to change.
Roughly every 25-50 years we get a catastrophic flood in my town in West Virginia (north central). The last one was in 1985 in which is still have Polaroid pictures of my father, back then a young man, rescuing residents from atop their roofs in a raggedy row boat. That same boat still sits under our car port, where my dad and I have maintained it since I was a kid just in case the town needs a hero again.
Noah takin sht from the fools around him
I love all the series Maiya has been covering. I'm studying emergency management and about to start an internship with the state, so hearing about new and updated data like First Street has me excited about creating forward-thinking and equitable solutions.
@raulgarcia8685 Thank you. We need people like yourself to fully understand and find real-world solutions to our changing situation(s). God bless
George Costanza got really worried once when he peed in his bathtub while taking a shower and he wondered if it was OK to do and Jerry told him the sewer was all connected it didn't make any difference but I don't think George calmed down? I think n it probably doesn't matter like Jerry said it's all connected.
Much of the problem with flooding in drylands is dry, compacted soil, with the biota withered or deeply challenged.
Adding raingardens and bioswales is a cheap way to increase flood resiliency instead of expanding stormdrains. It reduces ground subsidence which harms concrete structures, recharges watertables, regreens, reduces pollution and streetside trash, etc.
Heck, just reintroduce beavers into these areas and let them do the work. These little architects are so much better at it than we are.
Also what you said though.
@TyPaff
We can finesse our own ranch/farm/property, neighborhood, city etc instead of waiting for "return of the beavers." Beavers need an existing habitat of usable trees to be able to build water harvesting structures, so their reintroduction is of limited utility.
WE can exert immediate effect upon places that are away from woodlands to rebuild the watertable so beavers can be reintroduced at a later date.
Beaverdams have zero capacity in a cityscape. Raingardens, bioswales,checkdams immediately have positive impact in the environments they are placed as well as reduce flooding, drought, pollution impacts as well as increase carbon sequestration, add beauty, reduce utility costs/impacts, etc...
My community has been stupid about flood awareness. We have a spillway going through the southern end of town and they decided to build houses on gravel along the spillway. Everyone knows the second we have a flood all those houses will instantly be washed away...
That's not surprising.
A similar thing happened in Houston. They built flood retention areas that serve as parks when it's not raining. People limed the area and built nice houses towards the rear area of the facilities. So when Harvey hit Houston, the city had to decide between holding more water and flooding the nice expensive houses behind the retention area and releasing water on the cheaper houses below the retention area outlet... I think you know which one they chose lol.
This even happens in the Netherlands. Southern City of Venlo built their brand new Hospital right out in the Floodplain, narrowing the flood channel of Meuse river by nearly half a mile, which in flood carries over 3500 cubic meters per second (about 12.350 cubic feet).
Nearly caused the levees to overflow during the 2021 torrential floods which in Germany took over 180 lives. Hospital had the waters right under its lowest windows. G knows what happens if next time rains are yet heavier. 100 year floods ? More like 20 years today.
I bet a Republican lead board approved this.
@@Firefenex1996the sensible choice would be to put the more insured properties more at risk
My community in MN pays its citizens to install raingardens on their property. We've seen reactions in flooding and increased water quality in our lakes. Plus they're pretty.
Civil engineer here. Most flood modeling sucked, even before climate change increased.
Most drainage regulations are still focused on protecting the property owners immediately downstream from excessive peak flows which could cause erosion. They don't do much on a larger scale to protect communities further downstream.
To keep the calculations somewhat simple, a typical rainfall distribution is usually assumed. But in the last 10 or 15 years the capability exists to do continuous modeling.
Instead of examining a few hypothetical rainfall scenarios, all flood modeling should ideally use real historical rainfall data. You then "play back" actual rainfall data, potentially decades worth, into the model and look for problems.
Another thing that people are missing I believe is that the urban heat island effect is acting much like a mountain range to increase rainfall locally. As system of cloudy weather approaches a big city on a hot sunny day, there is a lot of instability and the leading edge of the weather system can be pushed higher into the atmosphere where it cools rapidly and quickly condenses out water as intense rainfall.
good points, there should be enough tools to nail out what can be done and what isn't worth it: sometimes the place is just doomed in a 5/10 years span and the hard decision to leave an area removed of buildings need to be made
In my hometown, Perry, Georgia (US)
We had a huge flood during a stalled tropical system in 1993 and it rained heavy for 3 days.
And every dam in the area busted and luckily our little town is on a hill but the surrounding areas were really affected.
We were stranded for weeks as all the roads outta town were washed out.
After that, our county hired engineers and planners and built a state of the art dam that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Instead of a wall.. it’s a row of big cement horizonal pyramids. And it’s never had issues again.
Also they got the county to put retention ponds at the end of every parking lot, and we haven’t had flooding since
All works well as long as flood installments are kept free and maintenance. But if nothing serious happens over 15 years local boards often decide they have better uses for the money, they can use those nice greens for expensive housing projects and such.
Until the next 100 year event, which in climate change, could well be here within 25 years. But then, it will be the next elected official's responsibility
While watching this, I keep thinking of the ongoing demand for greater housing density in urban centers. Here in Minneapolis, we’re building a lot of new apartments/condos on old, often abandoned industrial land. But perhaps some of that land should be used for green space and water retention instead. And south Minneapolis isn’t even a flood zone for the most part! I can imagine this same argument in a place like Houston, with much worse outcomes.
Macon county N.C. is currently deliberating on May 2, 2024 on whether to change the Little Tennessee River floodplain ordinance to allow fill dirt. A few officials think our county is too strict and should be equal to the rest of the State. The Little Tennessee is unique among Southern rivers in that it still has much of its freshwater biodiversity still intact. It is our strict local regulations that protect it.
I'm very glad I live in a place that received one of the highest 24 hour rainfall totals in American history back in the 1990s (a thunderstorm got "pinned" in place and just dumped all its rain on my area). Because of that, all new developments since then have such great flood mitigation infrastructure that when we get bad flash floods, life more or less continues as normal and you just drive a lot slower.
It’s so unfortunate that bad things have to happen FIRST before action is taken . My state does a lot of this too and you definitely notice it during storms
I had Jim Cantore come to my town in KY to talk about the increase in tornadoes and floods. It was really scary, seeing how fast our local weather is changing.
Nothing to add except THANK YOU. Someone had to say it, coming with the facts. Well said.
My street used to flood all the time. Since the local government installed a half dozen water collecting basins with big drains and absorbent plants, it hasn't flooded once.
... Which will last about as long as there's folk on the local boards with the insight and wisdom such installations need be maintained to function. After couple dry seasons, they may just think -we can use good money elsewhere. Next thing you know, your floods are back in force.
Progressive thinkers.
Maryland has a lot of good regulations with regard to development building . The land they purchase , a certain percentage has to be left undeveloped, usually the low lying part which are wetlands . This has significantly reduced flooding when we get storms . Or when we do get flooding , it clears out very soon after an event.
The don’t know why it’s so hard to grasp working WITH nature and not against it .
Mother Nature doesn’t play and always wins
That is nice, but a sewer and catch basin infrastructure project has absolutely nothing to do with this topic of global climate change.
Could you explain how this small example has nothing to do with the larger problem?
My city of Dover, NH unsuccessfully attempted to pass what many ignorantly referred to as a "rain tax" as a way to generate and dedicate funds to restructuring our infrastructure to handle large volumes of water (much of NH is touchy about the idea of taxes). Our city sits only 49 feet (just shy of 15 metres) above sea level and has one of New Hampshire's major tributaries to the tidal Piscataqua River, and we have been seeing some significant flooding begin to become a routine issue (in the past two years I have witnessed the Cocheco River out of it's banks five times, and in the past four years that I have been living at my condo community which sits just a few feet higher, the parking lot has flooded four times, three of which resulted in the loss of personal property, mostly vehicles. Being in a tidal area, we get a double whammy from the tides and flooding.
I’m not gonna lie yall . . . I think that global warming theory might not be fake news.
Yeah, let’s call it what it is: global warming. Climate change is beyond P.C.
Look now further than the Exxon Mobile Research coverup
I keep trying tell my parents but they always offload it as "natural"
@@volcano.mitchell tell them fire is natural too but that doesnt negate the reality of arson
Ya it’s not
I did the math
As someone from New Orleans I can say with certainty infrastructure is VERY important when considering flooding and flood risk.
"I use the word 'exponentially' because I was taught it in math class and that was the first sentence I could use it in. 'Exponentially worse' means crappier and crappier and crappier."
- Lewis Black
Lewis Black doesn't say "crappier". He says "shittier".
Wow. That wealth gap difference is insane. As well, I really didn't think Atlanta was gonna be THAT bad.
Terribly sad that crisis compounds an ongoing crisis.
This needs to change in my town. You're not even allowed to store rainwater in any way.
Omg I love how Maiya pronounces the city of Hoboken. So cute. Oh n props to NJ for attempting to mitigate these heavy rains.
I appreciate the presentation and explanation of effective solutions. Nice work!
I count myself as beyond lucky. Running water has always scared me, having grown up in a house built on the site of a gristmill. The millrace had been buried underground several decade did not change the fact that during heavy rains water still used the old millrace. When I found my "new home" the first thing I researched was site elevation. I am 20' off the highest elevation in the county, two miles from the nearest perennial stream and more than 300' and 20 miles from the lowest elevation. I sleep soundly during thunderstorms. I count myself lucky.
How does one research this and what should we look for?
I live in maine and we got absolutely hammered last year
Another great, informative video doc. Thanks for your hard work and dedication to informing the public. 👍🏼
Vermont, rural area. After three times our cellar was flooded, because the Gilbert's were too small. The town replaced them and we used granite to create areas in the river to slow down the water. We also built berms on the front yard to avert water runoff from the road. So far so good! The 180 year old farmhouse would have moved into the river from erosion for sure.😊
In Vermont we are dealing with major flooding state wide. I live on lake champlain and in 2010 and 2011 lake champlain flooded. That's entirely different then river flooding. The levies up the richaleau river to Montreal almost failed and that region flooded. Lake champlain flows north. So the issue in my region is tremendous as lake champlain is the 6th largest lake in the lower 48 .
I feel like the move from Boston to Portland last year was probably a good call, aside from Cascadia.😉 The city of Portland is much more environmentally prepared for flood issues. The city infrastructure to promote natural rainwater drainage is like nothing I've seen before here.
I moved to PDX from DC almost 20 yrs ago and yes, we are much more progressive in many ways, since it rains a lot. But the overdue/looming Cascadia quake is still a huge concern that most infrastructure here isn't ready for.
Part of the reason why portland looks great is because we have 13 flood control dams in the upper Willamette basin. Portland, and the people of the Willamette Valley in general, realized back in the 50s that life near the river was always going to plagued with large floods unless they could stop it. It's had some bad environmental impacts for animals but no matter how many people sue the dams, they will never be removed as long as potential flooding could cause damage to hillman life and the economy.
@Firefenex1996 I watched a couple of documentary films about this, the Vanport history especially was a great example of what can go wrong. Klamath gives some hope of change, or at least more thoughtful ideas that work with nature, not fighting to "conquer" nature. That is fighting ourselves in reality.
@MikeyfromBOS yeah. I had to comment just to provide context that the real flood stopper are the dams, but I do agree with everything you said. I won't bore people with my environmental ideas too much lol.
@Firefenex1996 if only so many were not so bored by it.
I am literally sitting in my office where we design rainfall resiliency measures in NYC atm
Honestly, here in my working class city in Massachusetts, we keep building and building in green spaces. A sprawling industrial park with lots of forest that was built on a swamp back in the 1940's is expanding and those forested area are now buildings and parking lots, so I am concerned. The ground water levels are frequently just inches below concrete slab foundations.
I live not far from there, only 100 meters from the river, but I have mitigated my risk. unlike my neighbors I kept all my trees, and I divert my roof runoff to a small artificial pond, wish a designed overflow with indigenous wetland plants.
My next door neighbors cut down their back yard trees so his children would have a backyard to play in, regardless of my warnings to them. They had standing water in the spring for a few days each spring, before they cut the trees. Now it's a about a month of standing water... I think he may have unintentionally created a vernal pond, but I haven't seen an increase in the amphibian population yet.
We really should know better up in New England; while things have gotten more extreme, it's not like we've never had to deal with severe precipitation before. A farmer across from my parents sold his land to a housing developer, they put in all the required safeties in the design to protect the wetlands and streams over there, but they had to move the foundation of one house 3 times because the holes they dug filled with groundwater every time it rained. And it's only gotten wetter over there since my parents moved in 20 years ago.
Thank you for continuing to spread this information! It needs more attention, and we need more sources to combat the climate science deniers (and the spread of misinformation)
Some cities, like Chicago are well prepared to handle large and intense rainstorms. The city was raised 14 feet and the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan when completed will be able to hold 17 billion gallons of water! Adding additional mitigation like those discussed in the video will further strengthen the city's ability to manage large storms.
Just wanted to inform you that southeast of Australia there is a small country called New Zealand. We have had major rain events that your chart does not show.
They have no idea where NZ is 😂
@@mtwataBetter keep it that way, or they all wanna come over when things turn bad 😅
As you push or kick the problem down the road it only seems to gather momentum or steam and come back even harder
Yeah, but the public will bitch and moan if the problem is address years in advance.
Love these videos, great host!
0:45 and this is the part most people don't realize...
I don't know how many people I've talked to who thought that there should only be one 100-year flood in 100 years 😅
While I was dictating this comment, my roommate literally had the misunderstanding 😂😂😂😂
Maybe the concept should be better named? Not everyone is a meteorologist or disaster manager. 🤷♀️ (Percent chance of precipitation is similarly misunderstood.) Not really a laughing matter when lay people cannot properly assess their risk because what _sounds_ (and is presented as) "obvious" is actually nuanced.
1-in-100 year event = 1% chance each year.
Does that translate into a chance of flood on 3.6 days out of a year?
no
@@brettany_renee_blatchleymaybe they should start paying attention in school and actually learning and putting effort into being educated. Statistics is not some insane high level math. It can be but most people can benefit from just taking a basic statistics class in high school or college or even just on your own. Plenty of free material out there
My daughter lived in Surprise Arizona for awhile when it was newly built. They had catchment ponds, parks when not flooded, and that kept them from flooding. They were grassy and the kids played there. Some neighbors in the Phoenix area were built with the yards sloped the wrong way... Towards the house instead of away from it. Those people had to sue the city for allowing the contractor to build like that.aa
I'm in northern PA, and we had farming communities devastated by flooding from Debbie this summer. Many farmers had complete loss of crops as well as significant loss of fencing and livestock.
Seems like a win-win, we save fresh water and reduce the likely hood of flooding.
Yayyy.Thumbnail shows Canada will be safe.
🇨🇦
It's not a weather problem, it's a "too many humans living where they shouldn't " problem
Love your videos. Thank you for the work you’re doing to educate the public about climate change.
In Horry County South Carolina after the 20 inches of rain in the fall of 2018 it took TWO YEARS for the swamp lands and water table to recover to the normal level of flooding 🎉
This video popped up right after I finished listening to It's Gonna Be Me on May 1st and Maiya May is in this video and I can't
This is a fascinating and scholarly study of the effects of climate change and extreme weather events. Thanks for educating us.
I recently got tied into the sewer system from a septic tank and I spent a ton of time working the ground adding grass to hold the dirt back my parent have a duplex ranch so they collapsed (2) 1000 gal tanks and left a huge depression now it went from steep neglected dessert dry to perfectly graded smooth green rolling grass
I love this channel. Thanks for the work you do.
My community has similar problems. A lot of marshlands being converted into neighborhoods. All the water has to go somewhere.
And it's even more important with houses along rivers and creeks.
One can pump dry water logged areas as much as they want, they remain the lowest lying areas around. As soon as the 100 year event hits, they become wet land again, whether houses been built or not. Folks who bought m will complain though, "the community hasn't done enough", blah blah. And demand good money to be paid to keep dry an area which basically _was_ a natural retention basin.
I think not understanding the concept of 100 year events might be why so many people have doubts about climate change. Yes, these kinds of events have always been happening...just nowhere near on this scale or frequency.
1:21 - Correct; this is an exponential function called the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. As you can visibly see in the graph, it's not strongly exponential. It accelerates, but it's at a moderate rate. That's because although the temperature variable is within the exponent, it appears both as a numerator (where it multiplies) and denominator (where it adds). So, it partially cancels itself and thus moderates the acceleration.
2:43 - NYC's water system is generally prepared for 3 inches of rain, just not within an hour. I'd rephrase it as the city is not prepared for storms that bring several inches of rain, or bring rainfall rates exceeding an inch or two per hour.
4:27 - The floodplains align "pretty much identically" with the green areas but not the blue areas. What are the green areas?
4:47 - The map accounts for flooding from rainstorms. It doesn't account for flooding from today's heaviest rainstorms.
5:07 - Ida could've been shown as a letter L for a low pressure system, rather than as a hurricane, when it got north of Mississippi. It was below tropical storm level at that point, and it transformed into a mid latitude storm starting in Kentucky. (Even when it restrengthened a bit over NJ and NY, it was still post-tropical. Once a tropical storm goes post-tropical, it stays post-tropical.)
Do you know how weird it is to see an actual smart person in the comments?
@@magesalmanac6424 Yes lol
Learned a new term yesterday = water whiplash. Super heavy rains in one area and extreme drought 200 miles away. In the Dallas area we experienced tons more rain this year than average until mid June and it just stopped. The ground looks like it hasn't rained in a year because we are now at 100 degrees
Thanks for making another interesting video. I'm glad we are learning better ways to measure risk.
There's no question that we need to revamp how we analyze rainfall in our changing world, but after sponsoring a paper published in PNAS (which contained some questionable conclusions) imploring the implementation of a "Category 6" hurricane instead of revising the Saffir-Simpson Scale, a la the way the Fujita Scale was revised and implemented in 2007, I've begun to take any assertions from First Street Foundation with a grain of salt, at the very least. Their work, in part or in whole, can be used to contribute to the greater good of these efforts.
Here in the east Coast of America, 100 miles inland NYS. It has been raining since December. Basically snowed , a little bit, twice since December of 2023. All the other storms were rain storms.
San Diego County, where I live, has only one default reaction to everything . . . build, build, build, build, build.
Sounds like my country, where Ex pat workers (foreigner with high, specialized education) get a 30% tax cut, which ends up in pushing up house prices. Plus, house buyers get to the deduct their mortgage rent from tax payments, also keeping house prices high. Govt solution is, as you say, build build build. My country however is the Netherlands, mist of the housing in below sea level areas, which need increasing protection as sea level rise, which also means river dikes have to be reinforced, as river levels follow sea level. For every foot higher, the costs of reinforcements double . .
Must be noted that storm water systems are designed based on a statistic model from historical weather records, we were missing information to begin with so the systems could have been "somewhat off" from the beginning. Weather is not uniform, we go over periods of macro change as well.
Good information. Thanks.
Sorry, this is off topic but the host Maiya May is so pretty! There's something calming about how she speaks so I was able to listen through the whole video and learned a lot as a result!
Thank you all so much for these very important videos, the more awareness the better!
Cool video. Lots of people that never flooded in sarasota flooded after tropical storm Debby.
Thank you
Now that the old 1 in 100 year floods have, in some areas, turned to 1 in 8 year floods, what will the new 1 in 100 year flood look like?
Man, this year they turned 1 in 10 day floods [speaking worldwide of course]
The new once in a hundred years floods will involve an eccentric carpenter and two of each type of animal
Maiya May, thank you so much for this amazingly comprehensive video. Water, being the most precious yet destructive resource on our planet, you would think it would be much better managed than it is.
Sewer worker here. Our plant was catastrophically flooded causing damage we are still recovering from. Also it's infuriating dealing with deceptive local bills named things like "Save the Coast" or "Protecting Coastal Lands" (houses, they mean houses) which are actively eroding the coastline. People vote yes for them thinking the proposal is helping the environment when in reality the seawalls are made to protect wealthy coastal properties and are responsible for accelerating coastal erosion in adjacent areas.
Yeah. We had nearly constant heavy rain the last few weeks. The sewer system was overloaded. Even some parts of the highway were flooded.
I live in Toronto and every time I see one of these climate change maps I wish they extended juuuust a bit further north so that we can see what the upcoming risks are too. However, I'm still glad for this content cus it reminds me that weather is definitely changing
In general, I'd say Canada is in a far more advantageous situation than USA, but in it's southern reaches, perhaps not. Plus, If we get weakening AMOC, Canada winters may turn for the bad. But a weaker AMOC will hurt USA much more.
Tell your tundra not to fart permafrost stored greenhouse gases into my atmosphere and we’ll consider learning where Toronto is so we can include it on the map
This channel is great!
As I watch this in the end of April we r getting pounded by hail in western WA
Best climat change video i have ever seen.
I love content like this great job guys
But how much did the Hoboken underground reservoir cost? Is it feasible to install these in every neighbourhood?
Fascinating video. Great topic. Why blur out your source's website? Seemed like a petty thing to do considering the work they're doing.
Thumbs up from being positive and solution driven here. Not an easy thing to be in current atmosphere around climate change.
South Florida checking in 💦🌊
That risk map? I can tell you why there's a statistical difference in risk between two counties - parishes here in Louisiana - that are immediately adjacent to each other. In Caddo Parish, which is in the extreme northwest corner of the state bordering with Texas and Arkansas, there's comparatively little residential development alongside the Red River or its tributaries (like Twelve Mile Bayou). We still have flooding problems, and yes, they're more frequent in communities of color. That's still a social and economic problem that needs to be better addressed. But, on the other side of the river in Bossier Parish - the darker blue one right next to Caddo - you have entire subdivisions built alongside Red Chute Bayou. And the builders KNEW it was prone to flooding! I know because I worked briefly in home construction and got out of it. They didn't like it when you brought up flooding events from the late 90's and 2001. And whaddayou know, it flooded again. And those claims show up in the new map. Don't trust contractors to give you an honest risk assessment. As long as they get their money they'll leave you to face the consequences. If we want that to change we have to demand regulation. No industry likes regulations but they still need them.
I love the cadence of this speaker
We definitely need some rain here in arizona
What a powerful documentary! Thank you for revealing what led to this escalating problem. As well as one practical solution.
I'm glad the racial and economic inequalities are brought out.
Much faster than WHO expected??? I was predicting this back n the 1990s. Anybody remember the Mississippi River flood?
The severity of climate change is getting worsen years after years, the world pays higher prices for climate disasters. The awareness of people to take immediate action by mitigation of climate change is a solution to save our planet.
I live in the Hampton roads area of Virginia it floods every time it rains no matter if it’s a short or long storm. I’ve lived here since 2013 and it’s gets worst every year smh
Here on the Oregon Coast, when I was young, it would flood every Thanksgiving really bad.But the last 25 years or so it just doesn't flood as bad. We have a lot of rain, but not flooding rain. Will it one day return? Most likely. We survived it before and we will survive it again,,,,,,,,,,
Our Sarasota county in Florida raise some our roads to 5ft high hurricane in 2022 it flooded the main road connected to i=75 highway so county handover the old two lane road to make it into 4lane road. And building a emergency hurricane side route.
Just last summer, my city suffered an unheard of rainfall. So much came down so fast that our sewer systems couldn't keep up.
My 10-minute drive home took almost an hour, and it had me trying to circumvent several massive "puddles" that I was afraid might stall my car. Unfortunately, these small lakes were at pretty much every intersection and small valley in the road. Our area (se Wisconsin) has a lot of small hills.
How are we doing? I live in Louisville, so apparently let we aren’t doing well. A lot of the “standard” flooding in Louisville is around creeks and the Ohio river waterfront areas, and a lot of those places are in parks and the newly implemented riverfront green space. Water is an issue, but local leaders seem to be doing a pretty good job based on what I’ve seen in the last 14 years. No complaints from me.
I live in Buffalo and we are starting to see lake-effect rain where the rain is a deluge
When you mention inches of rain it would useful to know the mm of rain / cm of snow.
This video came right before the record rains that flooded Rio Grande do Sul state in Brazil.
There was a big flood in 1873. Water level reached 3.8 meters. (3 meters being flooding levels.
Another in 1941 when the water reached 4.7 meters.
Now after 80 years, a record flood of 5.3 meters. Worse, the state has suffered 4 floods in the last year. This one the worse. By far. EVER, in the history of the state.
Before anyone says anything, the state is over 2000km south of the Amazon and there is a whole savannah like ecosystem south of the Amazon. So it's not this state (over 2/3 of it covered by natural grasslands) that is to blame.
Furthermore, it is the Amazonian humid weather that provoked the rains, as it did it's counter clockwise motion in the southern hemisphere, blocked by the Andes, then south, then east again... and then trapped over Rio Grande do Sul by a MASSIVE HOT DRY HIGH PRESSURE air mass central Brazil that acted as a wall.
The humid air trapped over the southernmost state, then Antartic and Patagonian cold air masses came north and condensed that humidity that fell in a huge area over 400 mm in a couple of days, over 700 mm in some areas.
great summary, the stakes look real bad, to the point to consider plain forfeit of some cities in more vulnerable areas to be reallocate as it may not be worth rebuilding there only to be washed out again in a few years