Floods Are Controllable

Give everybody on earth a helicopter and a soda straw...problem solved!

In my youth, my friends & I used to write our names in the snow (in yellow ink). Got me thinking the other day... If all of the male population were to step outside and melt snow in this fashion, maybe we could get rid of all of the snow! What a concept! Get rid of excess body heat and dispose of snow at the same time!

I suggest you read the following book by John McPhee, particularly the first section 'Atchafalaya'. McPhee does an excellent job of making the reader realize the folly of man's arrogance in thinking Man can control Nature.

http://www.amazon.com/Control-Nature-John-McPhee/dp/0374522596/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298835051&sr=1-1

Got to give the OP credence for putting it on the table, but..........

Storing the water from floods, by transport by air, with pumps and all the associated energy required.

There was more water flowed through the Brisbane floods a month ago that all the deomestic water used in Australia in the last 3 years!!!! (AND we need to remember that a significant portion of teh actual rainfall was held back by the flood mitigation dam that was constructed there some years earlier.

There is no way to stop the effects of flood. There are however ways to mitigate the effects of floods.

Don't build houses/towns/cities on the flood plains might be a good place to start.

Good infrastructure to prolong the duration of the flow. (For the so called "flash floods".)

Good weather and flow forecasting so downstream communities can prepare. Heck, the December flood in Western Queensland still has months before it will reach South Asutralia. It's passing through Bourke at the moment.

And from another perspective, floods are required by some ecological sectors to exist. Floods clean the river beds, overflow onto the flood palins and bring new nutrient and life to those arid locations.

We need to learn to live with nature rather than pretend (like that famous king) that we can command the tides not to come in.

By proper planning it could be controlled to a great extent. By providing proper drainage system to the sea and not allowing people to build homes in low lying areas damages could be reduced. The problem will be petty politicians who speak against many good ideas.

The rivers are the "drainage to the sea".

Are you suggesting that Australia (for instance) should build a 2000km long drain to bypass the river system and all the associated natural reserves associated. The fish stocks would die after one season, the aggricultural areas would have no water and so on.

The current "flood" when it passed St George was in the order of half a cubic km of water per day. The slope of the land from there to the ocean is less than 1 in 2000. So a channel 1km wide, 10 m deep with a flow rate of nearly 20 kph to conduct this water to the ocean. Nature has already given us the river bed, why try to build another? Especially when those rivers only flow around 300 day per decade.

I'm sorry, but I cannot see where this is leading other than a significant waste of resources. We would be better off requiring houses to be built at an elevation above flood level, but then there can always be a bigger flood.

The drain to the sea should be for excess water during heavy rains.

It may have already been done, but a study to collect flood waters and pump them to reservoirs in drought areas would make for good class projects for civil engineers. Pipelines that have aged past their useful service for oil and gas may be ok for floodwater. A leak would not be a big deal.

The big factor is energy, the saving to farmers has to be worth the bother. Crop failure due to drought costs everybody down the line, farmers, processors, and consumers. Increased production would benefit all, and farmers may not have to use potable water from aquifers. That would benefit fresh water consumers for residential purposes.

When I was young, my father, an Arkansas socialistic Democrat, damned Barry Goldwater (a conservative Arizona Republican) for the Central Arizona Project.

Central Arizona Project : Water for Arizona's Municipal and ..

It cost a ton of money, and isn't very efficient at moving lots of water.

Thanks, Lyn, for the report. I'm sure it's hard to move water efficiently. The canals look good, gravity is better than pumping. What I'm thinking about would be expensive, just like superhighways and such. It's the benefits I'm looking at, when I see flooding, I see irrigation water going to waste.

Windmills won't cost energy. Look at Dutch people.