Both phenomena are naturally occurring and the best thing we can hope to do is minimise the risks, try to have good plans in place for when they occur, and try to figure out what specific conditions might lead to them occurring so that we can warn people and move them quickly and safely.
Floods are more common and happen everywhere and where they occur – beside rivers – tends to be where most people live and work. In Ireland floods rarely lead to people dying but they do damage property and cover land. In other locations thousands of people are killed by floods every year.
Making somewhere flood proof is very expensive and sometimes means that you just push the water somewhere else. You could spend lots of money making sure your town doesn’t flood and the flood might never happen, or you could get a flood that over tops the defences. As climate changes weather patterns shift too, and areas that rarely flooded might see more floods, and areas that had lots of floods might get fewer.
Comments