Urban flooding a Great Lakes regional dilemma

James Dau in Great Lakes Echo: More people in Great Lakes cities are falling victim to urban flooding, some as often as 30 to 40 times in their lifetimes, according to a Chicago-based sustainability nonprofit organization. “We did a brief survey of people in the Chicago region, and we heard some actually devastating stories about flooding from some of them,” said Harriet Festing, director of the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s water program. “We came away from it pretty shocked.”

The September report defines urban flooding as when buildings, streets or open property are inundated by rain, sewage or overflowing bodies of water. Festing characterized the problem in Chicago as not catastrophic, but frequent.

It’s also hidden. Property owners often don’t want to talk about it, she said. “They’re somewhat ashamed of it, having sewage in their living space. They’re afraid of what it might do to their property values.

Chicago flood victims are not alone. The survey led the center to investigate urban flooding across the Great Lakes region. “We wanted to find out if it was more widespread than just Chicago, to see if other cities were suffering the same problem,” Festing said.

Thirty of 48 cities surveyed responded. They represent approximately 19.7 million people, almost 23 percent of the region’s population.

Every city reported flooding, with 80 percent characterizing those issues as medium or large. While most municipalities track flooding, only about half have a plan for dealing with it. Only 20 percent could estimate the cost of flooding damage....

Stillman Creek Flood in Marion, Illinois, in August 2007, shot by Ben Jacobson (Kranar Drogin) stitched by Marku1988, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Floods paralyze Indonesian capital, heavy rains continue

Fergus Jensen and Rieka Rahadiana in Reuters: Heavy monsoon rain triggered severe flooding in large swathes of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday, bringing the city to a halt with many government offices and businesses forced to close because staff could not get to work. At least 20,000 people were forced from their homes in the capital and weather officials warned the rain could get worse over the next few days.

"Rain will continue to fall in the greater Jakarta area ... the potential for flooding remains," a spokesman for the Meteorology Climatology Meteorology and Geophysics Agency told Reuters. He said rain was expected to remain heavy in mountains above Jakarta, often the source of floodwater.

Four people were reported to have been killed, according to the National Disaster Prevention Agency, which urged residents to stay at home to reduce traffic congestion on blocked roads. Torrential rain was reported across much of the country, including the main island of Java and heavily agricultural area of southern Sumatra....

From a 2007 flood in Jakarta, shot by gajah mada, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Mozambique floods kill 2, destroy homes

Terra Daily via AFP: Floods in Mozambique have killed two people and left hundreds homeless after heavy rains caused havoc, cutting roads and inundating parts of the capital, authorities said Tuesday.

Heavy rains have caused five major rivers -- including the Zambezi, Africa's fourth longest river system -- to burst their banks, flooding farmland and destroying homes.

"At this moment our big worry is Inhambane (in southern Mozambique)... where we have 800 displaced people," a spokesperson for the National Disaster Management Agency told AFP. Authorities have set up emergency centres accommodating those who have lost their homes in the floods....

Tel Aviv will flood again

Green Prophet: It’s warming up again this week in Israel, just after a series of storms last week that began with major flooding on the Mediterranean Coast and ended with Jerusalem of Gold turned to white after a serious snowstorm. Reports on the flooding of the Yarkon River, which shut down large sections of Tel Aviv for a day, including its major highway, have addressed the insufficient drainage system, but little has been made of the connection between climate change and severe weather events.

Professors Pinhas Alpert and Colin Price, lecturers at the Porter School of Environmental Studies’ International MA Program at Tel Aviv University, have predicted that increased flooding will result from global climate change. Alpert helped to pioneer the use of cellular phone networks for monitoring the amount and intensity of precipitation and water vapor – measurements which are virtually free of charge and can be used for studying global climate systems.

Prof. Colin Price, Head of the Department of Geophysical, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, researches the Earth’s changing climate and what impact it will have on global thunderstorms. He predicts that a relatively small change in global temperatures – a one degree rise – will result in a significant increase in lighting activity. He expects that in drier climates like Israel the storms may become fewer in number, but more intense with stronger and more rainfall and lightning.

This is precisely what happened last week in Israel, when the largest storm since 2003 hit the country and provided as much rain as certain cities see in an entire winter, according to the Israel Meteorological Service.

“Intense rainstorms in Israel can cause flash flooding, which causes increased runoff that doesn’t reach the aquifers,” says Price. “The water scarcity problem in this region is exacerbated when rainfall doesn’t recharge the groundwater supply and precious drinking water flows out to sea.”...

The harbor in Tel Aviv, shot by Daniel winter, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Impact of climate change hitting US, congressional report finds

The New York Daily News via Reuters: The consequences of climate change are now hitting the United States on several fronts, including health, infrastructure, water supply, agriculture and especially more frequent severe weather, a congressionally mandated study has concluded.

A draft of the U.S. National Climate Assessment, released on Friday, said observable change to the climate in the past half-century "is due primarily to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuel," and that no areas of the United States were immune to change. "Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington State, and maple syrup producers in Vermont have observed changes in their local climate that are outside of their experience," the report said.

Months after Superstorm Sandy hurtled into the U.S. East Coast, causing billions of dollars in damage, the report concluded that severe weather was the new normal. "Certain types of weather events have become more frequent and/or intense, including heat waves, heavy downpours, and, in some regions, floods and droughts," the report said, days after scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared 2012 the hottest year ever in the United States.

Some environmentalists looked for the report to energize climate efforts by the White House or Congress, although many Republican lawmakers are wary of declaring a definitive link between human activity and evidence of a changing climate....

Removing debris from the Joplin, Missouri, tornado, US Army Corps of Engineers photo

Philippines to move 100,000 squatters

Space Daily via AFP: The Philippine government plans to move about 100,000 squatters from their homes on crucial waterways in Manila by June as a flood control measure and for their own safety, an official said Saturday. The plan is to clear six major waterways in the sprawling capital before typhoon season starts in June, while also saving the squatters from being washed away by floods, said Interior Undersecretary Francisco Fernandez.

Experts have long warned that flooding in Manila has been worsened by the squatter communities who build precarious shanties on the banks of waterways, preventing water from flowing freely and blocking drains with rubbish.

Fernandez said there were an estimated 105,000 squatter families living on the waterways of the capital. The 20,000 families -- representing about 100,000 people -- living in the six major waterways would be the first to be moved.

"Forced evacuations will only be taken as a last resort," said Fernandez, whose office is in charge of informal settlers. He said the government was already meeting those affected so they could be relocated to areas near their old homes or at least in or near the capital....

A shantytown in Manila, shot by Mike Gonzalez (TheCoffee), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Australian bushfires worry insurers less than cyclones and floods

Peter Hannam in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia): With large parts of the country under threat during this bushfire season, it seems counter-intuitive - if not insensitive - to downplay the economic risks. With both Victoria and New South Wales declaring total fire bans and with bushfire researchers warning the danger period has barely begun, moves to minimise potential losses might also seem premature.

Still, while the costs of the latest fires are not trivial - 525 claims for $52.5 million for the Tasmanian fires alone - the reality is only a fraction of a typical premium reflecting bushfire risk, according to Karl Sullivan, the general manager policy risk and disaster planning at the Insurance Council of Australia. ''[It's] in the vicinity of less than 2 per cent,'' Sullivan says. ''Internal fires from kitchen fires and things like that rate higher.''

The insurance industry does not dismiss the human and financial costs from bushfires. Victoria's 2009 Black Saturday bushfires killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2000 homes. A report issued this week by Suncorp, one of the country's biggest insurers, noted the blazes cost at least $4 billion. Of that, the federal government spent $468 million on relief and disaster recovery, the state government $269 million and the insurance industry $1.07 billion.

But for the industry, bushfires are another of the major hazards facing Australians and less of a worry to insurers than tropical cyclones and floods. The reinsurance giant Munich Re says research shows Australia is more exposed than other regions to climate change but fire is not the foremost hazard, according to Ernst Rauch, head of the company's corporate climate centre.

Longer term, ''water and precipitation are probably the most significant issues related to climate change, in both directions'', he says....

Bushfire smoke over Melbourne in 2009, shot by Nick carson, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Kenya tackles climate threats to wildlife, tourism

Isaiah Esipisu in AlertNet: Climate shifts are forcing Kenyan experts to take drastic action to preserve the stunning scenery and wildlife that have drawn millions of tourists to the east African country, bringing vital revenue and providing thousands of jobs.

From collecting rainwater in national parks to providing animals with hay in hard times and preventing alien species of vegetation from taking over grassland, Kenyans have joined regional and global projects to grapple with the changes, which are having deep and rapid effects on the country’s natural resources.

One of the sites most severely affected by recent changes is Lake Nakuru, in the Rift Valley about 140 km (80 miles) northwest of Nairobi. The soda lake is home to millions of flamingos who make a dazzling display as they wheel and swoop in huge flocks before settling on the water to browse on the dense algae.

The flamingos and other water birds make the lake one of the country’s most magnificent spectacles, watched by thousands of tourists from the 14 hotels overlooking the lake and giving jobs to thousands of Kenyans, as well as bringing in more than 3 billion Kenyan shillings ($36 million) a year in revenue.

...But in the past three months, millions of birds have migrated to other places because of pounding rains that have caused the lake to overflow....

Storks and flamingos at Lake Nakuru, shot by Angela Sevin, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Year of extremes shows cuts to UK flood fund were short-sighted, say critics

This is South Devon: Almost 8,000 homes and businesses were flooded in 2012, as the UK was battered by repeated heavy rain, storms and floods. Defences protected almost 200,000 properties, but with spending on such measures falling at a time when floods are predicted to get worse with climate change, the Government has come under fire for cutting the flooding budget.

There are hopes that 2013 will bring drier weather after England's wettest year on record, which affected thousands of families and businesses England and Wales experienced ten separate flooding events between April and December after widespread drought gave way to the wettest summer in a century, with unusually high rainfall totals and river levels around the country.

Parts of Devon and Cornwall saw more than 24 hours of continuous rain at the end of April. In late June, Honister in Cumbria saw eight inches (200mm) of rainfall in one day, the Environment Agency said.

...But spending on flood protection measures fell in the last financial year – the first full year since the spending review – from £354 million on new projects in 2010-2011 to £259 million in 2011-2012. The amount spent on maintenance also fell, from £172 million to £156 million last year.

The devastation repeatedly wrought on the country prompted the Treasury to provide another £120 million in November for defences over the next couple of years, focusing on places where they would have the greatest economic benefit...

The flooded watermeadows west of Clyst St. Mary have been lightly frozen in the first real cold night of the 2009-2010 winter. The ice was beginning to make cracking noises as it started to thaw and the water was going down. Shot by Jonathan Billinger, Wikimedia Commongs via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

UK flood warnings remain in place after deluge

Andrew Hough in the Telegraph (UK): Authorities warned of a continued threat of flooding to homes across the Midlands, northeast, West Country, south west and Wales. Today, almost 80 flood warnings remained in force across swathes of the south while more than 110 flooding alerts were in place.

Flood defences remain in place along parts of the River Severn, in Shropshire and Worcestershire. The Environment Agency said the river should peak on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning. Officials said they expected river levels to recede shortly after.

Parts of North Yorkshire also remain under threat from rising groundwater levels. Forecasters said there was a risk of a few showers over the next few days after a fine and dry start to the New Year.

An Environment Agency spokesman said: "Looking at the forecast it looks like a few showers which hopefully won't send the levels back up again. "There could be some spells of surface water flooding around the patch in the next week as well, so it's not quite time to put the sandbags away."....

A UK traffic sign

Maryland's governor signs executive order on flooding, sea level rise

MyEasternShore.com (Maryland):  Gov. Martin O'Malley signed an executive order Friday to increase Maryland's long-term resiliency to storm-related flooding and sea level rise. The Climate Change and Coast Smart Construction Executive Order directs all new and reconstructed state structures, including other infrastructure improvements, be planned and constructed to avoid or minimize future flood damage. It requires new and rebuilt state structures to be elevated two or more feet above the 100-year base flood level.

"As storms such as Hurricane Sandy have shown, it is vital that we commit our resources and expertise to create a ready and resilient Maryland by taking the necessary steps to adapt to the rising sea and unpredictable weather," O'Malley said. "In studying and planning for storms and climate change, we can ensure that our land, infrastructure, and most importantly our citizens are safe and prepared."

The order also directs the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to work with the Maryland Commission on Climate Change, local government and other parties to develop additional Coast Smart guidelines within nine months. Recommendations for applying the new construction guidelines to non-state infrastructure projects that are partially or fully funded in the state's capital budget will also be developed.

Over the past three decades, Maryland's climate has become hotter and water levels within the Chesapeake bay have continued to rise," DNR's Program Manager for Climate Change Policy Zoe Johnson said. "The region's recent extreme storms and weather have demonstrated just how vulnerable our natural resources and infrastructure can be to such events."…

Assateague Island, from the US Army Corps of Engineers

Thousands flee Malaysia floods, dam wall broken

Terra Daily via AFP: Floods triggered by torrential monsoon rains in Malaysia forced almost 14,000 people to flee their homes and seek shelter at relief centres, the official Bernama news agency said Wednesday.

Heavy rain coinciding with high tide flooded hundreds of homes in three northeastern states -- Terengganu, Pahang and Kelantan -- with some 13,746 people moved to evacuation centres, it said amid forecasts of more downpours.

Bernama said the flood situation was deteriorating as the number of evacuees continued to rise and some major roads in Pahang were closed as rivers burst their banks.

Muhammad Helmi Abdullah, the meteorological department's weather forecast director, warned that there could be more rain in Terengganu, Pahang and southern Johor state in the next few days.

"We expect intermittent rain to heavy showers in (some parts of) the states," he told AFP, adding that the northeast monsoon season would last until March and the affected states could experience at least three more "heavy rain" episodes....

A scene from a 2007 flood in Malaysia, shot by Ab Rahman, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Woman rescued from floodwaters as Britain braces for more bad weather

Amelia Hill in the Guardian (UK): A woman spent almost an hour clinging to a tree in the middle of a fast-flowing flooded river before a police helicopter spotted her in the early hours of Sunday morning. The swollen waters had swept the unnamed woman from her car and she was fighting to stay afloat when the Devon and Cornwall police helicopter saw her.

Rescued by a RNLI lifeboat, she was treated for exposureThe woman was then reunited with a man and a child who had been trapped in the car when the River Taw broke its banks and had been rescued by firefighters. The dramatic rescue came as forecasters predicted more rain would fall in the next few days: 165 flood warnings were in place across all regions of England – as well as in Wales.

The wet but warm weather has led to dozens of people being moved to emergency shelters, with more warned they too could be forced to leave their homes to escape the rising floodwaters. The Met Office has issued a yellow alert for rain on Christmas Day, covering Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Devon and Somerset.

Rail services warned that trains were so badly affected that many of those hoping to travel to see friends and family for Christmas must expect considerable disruption. Those using the First Great Western rail service have been told not to make "non-essential" journeys.

Scotland has had 30 flood warnings, with Perthshire, Tayside, and Angus particularly badly affected. And significant flooding in Stonehaven, near Aberdeen, has led to about 60 people being relocated and a reception centre being set up at Mackie Academy....

Winter floods at Bickleigh in 2006, shot by Pauline Burden, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Global warming a culprit in growth of water-damage insurance claims

Tracy Sherlock in the Vancouver Sun: ...Water damage has overtaken fire damage for insurance claims, and that trend looks to continue as king tides, warming oceans and more intense storms multiply the effects of sea level rise. “We don’t get hurricanes quite like Sandy in B.C., but you do get heavy winter storms with big winds and they blow a lot of water,” said Gordon McBean, professor at Western University in London, Ont., and director for research at the centre for environment and sustainability.

“When the wind is blowing, it takes a hold of water and pushes the water toward the land. Once it hits the land, it can’t go anywhere, so it piles up and you create a storm surge, which can push the water up to quite high levels, metres above the standard level, and that’s what happened in New York with Sandy.” In the U.S., damage from floods is covered by insurance; in Canada it is not.

Patricia Stirling, director for underwriting at BCAA, said flood damage — from a tsunami, for example — is never covered. However, a sewer backup that occurs as a result of a flood might be covered. And water damage from a plugged toilet or broken water tank is usually covered. But still, the amount of money paid out by insurance agencies for water damage is growing quickly....

Nigerian agency links flood disaster to climate change

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in AllAfrica.com via This Day (Nigeria): The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has attributed the debilitating flood disaster witnessed in the country this year to climate change.

The agency said the way to mitigate future occurrence of such disaster, was for everybody to become environmentally-conscious. Agency advised governments at all level to build buffer dams where there are need to build some. It equally advised the people in flood plains to move to higher grounds.

The Director General of NEMA, Muhammad Sani-Sidi, disclosed this at the end of the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha, Qatar.

A statement by NEMA's Head of Public Relations, Mr. Yushua Shuaib, quoted Sani-Sidi as saying that climatic condition and drastic change in whether pattern contributed to massive flooding witnessed in many states in Nigeria. The massive flood had resulted in loss of lives and sources of livelihood worth billions of naira.

Sani-Sidi said: "We are now living witnesses to the reality of climate change and global warming where areas considered as dry land in the northern part of the country witnessed excessive and torrential rainfall while some communities in the South were also submerged....

Mining, logging contributed to Philippine disaster

Terra Daily via AFP: Unchecked illegal gold mining and decades of indiscriminate logging contributed to the high death toll in the Philippines' worst natural disaster this year, officials and experts say.

Whole towns were washed away or buried by landslides when Typhoon Botha smashed into a mountainous region on the southern island of Mindanao last week, leaving 548 people confirmed dead and 827 missing.

Poverty, greed and the lure of the precious metal have long drawn thousands of prospectors to the region.

"Mining and logging may have had an effect," said civil defence chief Benito Ramos.

"The mountains have been denuded for decades, and filled with holes by our countrymen who are small-time miners. It pains me to say this, but these are the facts," he said....

Typhoon Bopha making landfall in the Philippines on December 3, 2012, via NOAA

Climate change affecting livelihood options in Assam

Business Line from the Hindu (India): Climate change leading to natural disasters, particularly flood and erosion, has affected the livelihood options of thousands of people across Assam, a study has found out.

The impact of the climate change is most pronounced among marginalised women, but it has also pushed people from prosperous families into taking up work of domestic assistance and daily wage labour, the study revealed.

In many cases, young women of less developed and remote areas have even been pushed into flesh trade after natural disasters wiped out their options of making an honest livelihood.

The study was conducted by the Centre for Environment, Social and Policy Research (CESPR) in collaboration with the Indian Network on Ethics and Climate Change.

It has been observed that during the last few years there has been a significant change in the livelihood options of people due to climate distortions, CESPR spokesperson Sabita Devi says.

The study was undertaken in the six severely disaster-affected districts of Lakhimpur, Majuli in Jorhat, Morigaon, Sonitpur, Baksa and Dibrugarh….

An aerial view of the Brahmaputra River in Assam, shot by Akarsh Simha, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

'Black swan' storms: extreme cyclones linked to warming seas

Becky Oskin in Our Amazing Planet: A "black swan" cyclone may sound like the latest comic book hero, but this "extreme of the extremes" is the result of climate models that suggest global warming will make future hurricanes more intense.

The rare monster tropical cyclones (the term for hurricanes, typhoons and other tropical storms) could inundate coastal areas with storm surges greater than 15 feet (4.6 meters), and could even surpass 30 feet (9 m) in some regions of the world. The research was described here yesterday (Dec. 3) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

By simulating thousands of possible future storms, researchers identified the outliers that could hit coastal areas in the future but that wouldn't show up in predictions based solely on historical records, said Ning Lin, a professor at Princeton University. The scientists relied on the same model the National Weather Service uses to predict hurricane activity for a given season.

...Even though Hurricane Sandy broke several records and generated tremendous storm surge, the superstorm was not a black swan, Lin said. The simulated storm surges calculated by the model for New York, at up to 16 feet, top the record set by Hurricane Sandy, at 14 feet (4.3 m) — part of which was the high tide at the time....

The Brooklyn waterfront during Hurricane Sandy, shot by lookcatalog, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

To drought-proof city’s water supply, Sydney proposes a second set of pipes

Brett Walton in Circle of Blue:  The City of Sydney, one of 38 political subdivisions in Australia’s largest metropolitan region of the same name, is in the final stage of preparing an ambitious master plan that seeks to refashion its water infrastructure to meet the constraints of a water-scarce future.

One of the oldest sections of Australia’s 224-year-old hub, the City – which includes the central business district and is home to 185,000 of the 4.6 million people in greater Sydney – envisions a second water-distribution network that would provide water for purposes other than drinking. This parallel system would tap into new sources like salty water, purified by waste heat from power plants, as well as existing sources, such as recycled wastewater and rainwater, which are typically flushed out to sea.

“For a major urban centre to have two networks — one delivering potable water and another delivering non-potable water — it would be ground breaking in Australia,” Monique Retamal wrote in an email to Circle of Blue. Retamal, a researcher at the Sydney-based Institute for Sustainable Futures, helped to develop the City’s water plan. “As far as I am aware, there are no other similar plans elsewhere in the world.”

The city council not only wants to adapt its obsolete infrastructure to a changing climate, said Bhakti Devi, the city’s manager for water strategy. Because cities worldwide will soon be confronting the same problems, the City also wants to be a pioneer for urban water solutions globally....

Sydney and Sydney Harbour Bridge taken from North Shore, 19 March 1932. Shot by E.W. Searle

Messing with natural habitats only makes flooding worse

Tony Juniper in the Independent (UK): Recent flooding has caused widespread misery, disruption and large-scale economic damage. One sector that has been hard hit is insurance. Because flooding is becoming more frequent due to climate change, some areas are becoming uninsurable. Some 200,000 properties could soon see withdrawal of flood insurance and talks between government and the Association of British Insurers are yet to reach agreement on how insurance cover might be continued for those properties at highest risk.

Alongside debates on how to maintain insurance cover, another natural focus in the wake of deluges of the kind recently experienced is about the quality and extent of traditional flood defences. All this is fine, but for me there is a piece missing. It relates to both these questions and is about the vital role that could be played by so-called ‘green infrastructure’.

While the risk of flooding can be reduced at least in the short-term through the building of hard defences (such as higher levies and bigger storm drains), approaches that go more with the flow of nature can be both cheaper and more effective. For example, peat bogs on hills store rainwater and release it slowly into streams and rivers. When the bogs are damaged, heavy rain runs off more quickly and can cause problems below.

...With these and many other experiences in mind, various bodies including conservation groups, water companies and local authorities are beginning to invest in trees and peatland restoration as cost-effective measures to reduce flood risk (and improve water quality). Peat and trees also contain a lot of carbon, so this way of cutting flood risk is also a way to help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air....

Damage from the 2007 flood in Sheffield, UK, shot by Dave Pickersgill, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license