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Major flood events occur around the world every year, but with international loss databases documenting increased incidents of flooding, more material loss and greater fatality rates, are these events on the increase, and are they getting worse?
A new study referencing the IPCC SREX report finds a surprising answer.
Changing landscapes not global warming to blame for increased flood risk
Studies have shown that there is a clear link between population density and flooding. Currently 800 million humans are living in areas vulnerable to flooding. This is predicted to rise by a further 140 million during 21st Century as we see continued economic and population growth. At the same time reduction of woodland, changing river flow and the urbanisation of flood plains will increase flood risk in many regions.
The SREX report established a link between the human impact on the global landscape and occurrences of heavy precipitation leading to greater flood risk, and predicts an increase in rain generated flooding this Century. At the same time the report concluded that there was a lack of research identifying, in a persuasive way, an influence of anthropogenic climate change on global river flooding.
Whilst scientists recognise that climatic factors such as atmospheric water vapour, evapotranspiration, snowmelt, temperature sequences, ground water and soil moisture content can all contribute to flooding; further long term study of regional flood patterns is needed to fully understand how a change in the climate could alter these climatic factors and impact on future flood risk.
Furthermore, whilst climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are strongly linked to flooding, the relationship is very complex, and to date neither empirical analysis nor data modelling has been able to accurately describe the connections.
The key message of this research is that:
“The scientific community needs to emphasize that the problem of flood losses is mostly about what we do on or to the landscape and that will be the case for decades to come.”
The authors urge governments, scientists, engineers and citizens to use practical precautionary strategies to limit regional flooding sooner rather than later, because conclusive scientific evidence linking greenhouse gas emissions and flooding will be a long time coming.
Read the full article online:http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2013.857411
Source: Taylor and Francis Newsroon
The federal government has a problem, a $25 billion problem. That’s how much the federal flood insurance program is in debt. But 2/3 of that debt is due to the failure of federally constructed and maintained levees in New Orleans, and none of it is due to anthropogenic climate change: sea-levels are rising no faster now, after 2/3 century of heavy GHG emissions, than they were 80 years ago.
Congress’s “solution” was the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. It is a disaster for America.
Biggert-Waters is already drastically increasing the cost of mandatory flood insurance on many homes, to ruinous levels, even on structures which have never had an insurance claim. It is doing so to pay off a debt which has nothing to do with actual flood risks for the homes that are being hit with rate hikes of as much as 3000% or more.
That’s just wrong. It is morally wrong, and it is bad economic policy. Federal flood insurance on coastal property in many States, like North Carolina, is already profitable, without these rate increases.
Insurance rates are supposed to be based on the risks associated with the properties being insured. Raising their flood insurance rates would only make sense if the high losses in New Orleans and the profits in other States were products of mere random luck, implying that future risk to property in those States is higher than their loss history suggests.
But we know that isn’t true. Most States do not have cities which are built below sea-level, behind federally-constructed levees of questionable integrity. It’s not fair to make coastal homeowners in those States bear the burden by themselves of paying for the federal government’s expensive New Orleans levee blunder, while other citizens pay nothing.
Additionally, Biggert-Waters contains provisions which appear to be designed to increase the cost of insurance and discourage coastal development.
For instance, it has a provision encouraging, for the first time, the squandering of federal flood insurance premium money on private “reinsurance,” of the sort which has wiped out most of the reserves of the NC Beach Plan (now called the Coastal Property Insurance Pool). That’s just a way to siphon money from Americans, and put it into the pockets of (mostly foreign) reinsurance companies.
If there’s any entity on planet Earth which should self-insure, it’s the U.S. federal government! Private reinsurance makes no sense at all for the federal government. It is a scam, pure and simple, by an unholy alliance of reinsurance companies and leftist Climate Movement activists.
Biggert-Waters also has a provision directing FEMA to draw all new Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs). The new flood maps will, for the first time, incorporate “climate science” to make sea-level rise projections. Those are code words meaning that new flood maps are to be based on future, hypothetical, politically-driven predictions of wildly accelerated sea-level rise, which are thoroughly inconsistent with sound scientific analysis.
It sets up a body to oversee this process, called the TMAC (Technical Mapping Advisory Council). This process will create fanciful “flood maps” which make billions of dollars worth of coastal property undevelopable, and which have nothing at all to do with real flood risk. It could end up being even a bigger economic catastrophe for coastal communities than the disastrous Biggert-Waters insurance provisions.
Biggert-Waters is a man-made disaster, and it urgently needs to be repealed.
Pete in Cumbria UK says: @ur momisugly January 23, 2014 at 4:26 am
…. BUT; farmers are NOT enriching the soil, they are stripping out organic matter by ploughing (exposure to sunlight and oxygen) and by using nitrogen fertilizer (over stimulates soil bacteria which ‘eat’ organic matter producing, guess what, carbon dioxide.
They do not replace this organic matter and the situation is getting worse with bio-mass and bio-fuel policy. Greenies have some notion that farms produce ‘waste’ in the shape of straw and other crop residues. Wrong wrong wrong, that stuff should go back into the ground….
…The land should act like a huge sponge.
Its the farmers – I know because I am one and I blame (for lack of a better word) WUWT for getting me to think about it clearly.
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Well said. You won’t see it in any of the major news but the trend here in the USA is towards a Scorched Earth Policy because of the propaganda about farms and food poisoning.
Also because of the USDA policy of Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz’s of “get big or get out,” used to encourage the growth of corporate factory-farms and the increasing subsidized production of staples for export, many of the buffer strips and tree lines planted just after the 1930s Dust Bowl era have been removed so that huge tractors can be used on much larger fields. The number of farms in the USA has dropped from 31,974,000 in 1920 to 3,871,583 in 1990. In 1985, there were 3,950,000 farms on the great plains while only 725,000 were in the west and 302,000 in the northeast.
The 535,000 farms in the Great Plains states average more 1,000 acres per farm. (1987)
We get hit with another 1930s drought we are going to have a ‘Dust bowl’ all over again if farmers are not using No-till, seed drill farming.
Ronald Daw says: @ur momisugly January 23, 2014 at 5:08 am
Blaming climate change is a very successful strategy for politicians seeking excuses.
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Yes, the one size fits all excuse, sucha deal!
“Never build on a flood plain”… that’s what my father always told me.
Some of my in-laws have a house near the Red River in Louisiana, on the dry side of the levee. (which is in the back of their acreage) I myself remember a flood back in the 80’s when the water reached 5 feet deep on the other side of that levee, and stayed there for a couple of weeks.
Now, over the last couple of years, some slick developer bought a lot of the “wet-side” land cheap, and has put in a housing development – pretty nice houses, too! He tells everyone he sells to that the flood controls are much better now than they ever used to be, and there is no danger of the Red River flooding like it used to do in the bad old days. (meaning 20 years ago)
Yeah, the same Red River that has been flooding that land off and on for the last 10,000 years or more. At least he had to put his access road in over the top of the levee, and he wasn’t allowed to chop a hole through the middle of it, like he wanted to do.
In the US, modification of the river banks (e.g., adding levees) has played a big role in creating successively worse flooding. I recommend Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America by John M. Barry for a good account of how Army Corp of Engineers projects contributed to the most catastrophic flooding in US history.
Interestingly enough, I built near a floodplane. However, I did some careful research. Initial Fema flood plane had not mapped most of the land in the flood plane. The revised flood plane map placed about 60% of the land in the flood plane. However, I spent the time and money for a surveyer to properly map out the land. I’d swear FEMA doesn’t even bother with topographical maps. When accounting for elevations, the water way and a number of other factors, the map looked vastly different than Fema’s mapping. As such, I targeted the highest eleveation, then further elevated the house. Whilst building in proper drainage around it. Then in addition built in proper draining for passing waters. Excavating a path for water for the occasional build up. I did some of this gradually after I was able to observe behaviors when there was a severe rain.
I think this is the essential point. It’s true my home may be at a higher risk than some places. Although in observing last years 22 days of rain, where there was a fair bit of flooding in areas, I was in great shape. I saw other houses that were partially submerged, in my case, the water filled up where expected, and stayed far far away from my home. Granted, I did listen to the survey.
They got it right. Landscape change is the major issue. For years governments encouraged people to build on flood plains by subsidizing insurance. It not only put people in harms way but caused the lost of 50% of the world’s wetlands. Too re-direct attention from their erroneous ways, they will blame global warming. Shameless.
GOOD ADVICE! GK
(added emphases)
Seems like the paper is on the sceptical side of the fence to me.
An awful lot of crap has been written about flooding and flood control. Let me try and put the record straight very briefly and succinctly. I am a farmer in SW Scotland. The headwaters of the River Annan run through my farm.. All rivers in Scotland are controlled by a quango, the Scottish Envionmental Agency.(SEPA). For many hundreds of years farmers have taken gravel out of the rivers to use in draining fields,,making hard standings, or just clearing gravel bank build ups in the river. SEPA has prohibited this,for many years now. Result- all the rivers are now literally full of gravel and sediment. When it rains there is nowhere for the water to go. On my farm the river bed is 1 metre higher than it was ten years ago.. No surprise when it floods. England has its own EPA of course. The rivers now have to be allowed to take their ‘natural’ course. Result -disaster. Its not rocket science if the rivers are full of gravel and we aren’t allowed to clear them then flooding will ensue.
Incoherent; Furthermore, whilst climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are strongly linked to flooding, the relationship is very complex, and to date neither empirical analysis nor data modelling has been able to accurately describe the connections.
Say what? There’s a strong link but it’s never been measured or described? Maybe they “just know” it exists?
Catastrophic Somerset floods are the result of the Environment Agency’s policy against dredging its rivers : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10595534/Somerset-Levels-Theres-nothing-natural-about-this-man-made-flooding.html#