Flood Prevention Idea

My instinct says NO.

The amount of energy required would prohibit the use of "sprayers".

The best method of flood prevention, is proper planning. We really should try to limit building structures in high flood risk areas.

yes if they required power, but a river flowing fast has a lot of power,so if the down pump was powered by the river, then it would work, what i want to know or understand is how much water would be in the air at one time, say along a mile of bank.?

yes you are right, but the govt hasnt built the barriers, they hope the flood will just go away, but every year it gets worse, so individuals will have ot do something and sometimes crazy ideas are the best ideas, if only to start a debate

the fountain designi i mean is the victorian ram pump, a sort of ventura design, where the water is forced into a tnak, then a one way vlave stops it going back to the only way out is a nozzle, making the water escape under pressure, and so can be sued for a fountain,so no need for power,

No, it would just rain harder.

ha ha cheers

Why not boil the water instead, the bunny shaped vapor clouds will deposit as rain elsewhere and become someone else's problem? Why not channel it away, using the water to irrigate an orchard of mayonnaise trees?

i am serious, as the govt has not even bothered pot build the flood barriers they promised, the problem will not go away, so individual home owners will be forced to do something

You think a individual homeowner will fork out the thousands of dollars on magic pumps to make it rain more?

If cost was no obstacle, and physics could be ignored, this is a great idea.

Maybe all the homeowners in the effected area can pool their resources together, and build their own levees.

I don't agree that this is a great idea.

This is juggling the water in the air... flood mitigation at its worst.

[edit] Ooops I must have been speed reading again! Sorry RVZ

I think you missed the first part of that sentence... I made an attempt at sarcasm.

"If physics can be ignored"

No, it's a downright bad idea.

Hydraulic Rams need a drop in order to work and they still cost money. Imagine the cost of all of those rams and associated foundations plus the maintenance for them, and then figure that they might be in use once or twice a decade. It doesn't add up.

A flood retention dam (leaking dam) upstream of the build up area does it better.

So what about the concept of just not living next to bodies of water that are prone to sudden level changes that are not in your favor?

You know, dont build on the friggen flood plane?

It's England. The whole thing's a friggen flood plane.

And every house has a basement.

What do I know? I live in a desert. But, my house in Minn. has a sump pump and a dehumidifier in the basement.

Well you cant fix stupid and as I have witnessed first hand around Minot ND this last summer.

Two summers ago we had the largest and longest lasting flood in local history. But to look at where and by how many are building big new expensive houses right along the river, well within the very debris that still left from the flood, you would never know it.

On top of that there is one place right along the river where nearly a cubic acre of hill side slumped and slid down and out around 50 - 75 feet thats recently been dozed out level and has at last count six big new homes sitting right on it. One guy even has his house built right on the edge of the very embankment where the land slid out from!

Yep you cant fix stupid but apparently there is no rule against selling him property in locations where natural disasters are near annual events.

Location, location, location.

You aren't going to get much water into the air if you are trying to use the flow of the river to power the pumps.

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....but assuming you did manage to get a meaningful amount of water in the air....more water is coming right behind that, and the water you put into the air is going to fall back down, some of it will end up right back in the river.

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Any reduction will be the water that did not land back in the river but instead came down in the area you are trying to protect. So instead of spraying water into the air, simply siphon water from the river over the levy so that only the minimum amount of flooding occurs without washing out the berm.

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On the other hand, if you won't be satisfied without a huge energy expenditure for drastic changes, consider setting up 'freeze stations' every 50 feet so that liquid nitrogen could be sprayed on any water that was close to flowing over the river bank, to create reactive ice levies!

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A plan that involves partially returning to what occurs naturally, i.e. flood plains being replenished with sediment when floods exceed the banks, is probably something good to consider.

The idea might work but you have to deal with some details (apart from the huge power needs that have been previously mentioned).

1. You have to build the damn thing.

2. It is a good thing that that atmosphere can hold tremendous amounts of water. The problem is that when there are floods usually the air is saturated (hence there is rain). Maybe you can trick this by spraying water at great a hight (at least 100-200 m I would say) so the fine water droplets are taken away by the wind (of course it will rain in another area so you must consider this also). Also try to spray it over lush vegetation since it can hold a lot of water within the plant itself, on the leafs and in the soil.

Good luck with the project.

Try switching to decaf.

What goes up must come down. There would be as much water coming back down as going up, less a little evaporation. I fail to see the point.

If you could keep the flood at bay would it really be a flood?

Perchance that you got this idea set up. And now are able to put 1000 gals of water in the air. Which drops the river level say two inches. But the level of the water is till rising.

What do you do now?

No!

1 mole of water vapour (equivalent to just 18 g or 18 ml, just over half an ounce of liquid) occupies about 24 litres of the atmosphere at normal sorts of temperature. 100% saturation could be a bit uncomfortable, so multiply that volume by 10, perhaps. I'll leave you to do the maths for the size of the river you are thinking of.

One old and one new:

In the old country, which is in part flat, like a lake, the farmers first built a large fishpond, and used the soil 6-10' thick for the house, yard and barn. During flood, The homesteads stuck out like islands.

I saw a modern solution from Holland. Basements were built tight like a boat. The house on the top. When the groundwater rose, the houses rose with it, an estimated 8', then later sank back into their holes. Weird to see, but the hydraulic seem to be right.

Working with water is always more advisable, than fighting it.

Sandbags would be cheaper and better.