More Flooding: Department of DUH!

Part of the problem is poorly maintained levees. But another part is ... hmm, let's say poorly planned levees. The more you hem in a river, the more water winds up in the main channel. Rivers are supposed to fan out, and when torrential rain comes, spread out over floodplains. That's why those are called "floodplains." They're inhabited by wildlife that doesn't much mind occasional flooding (and in some cases, needs it). When humans rechannel, dam, and levee rivers to "control" them -- and then build right on the banks and the floodplains -- disaster is not "an act of god." It is an inevitable outcome of natural processes.

Now add global warming and environmental degradation. The weather is getting more violent and less amenable to gentling. Fewer forests soak up the water upstream. Fewer grasslands hold the soil in place. So all that water and debris comes ripping downstream into river systems that have fewer branches because humans have lopped off inconvenient ones, and then the river tries to spread out into wetlands that have been drained, until finally it just loses its temper at all the constrictions and explodes out of bounds -- onto the floodplains and sometimes beyond.

We'll be seeing a lot more of this. It would be prudent to start moving back from the edge of the increasingly-cranky waters, and to restore riparian zones as much as possible to benefit from the sponge effect.

It's nice to see that not all of the merchant-gentry have forgotten their duties.