Greetings my Hivean friends and followers in this wonderful community. Sometime last month, there was a heavy rainfall around Port Harcourt and it has caused most of the street of Port Harcourt been flooded with water so I took it upon myself to put down this write up, which I am going to be talking about causes of flooding and primary ways we could control flood in our environment.
MEANING OF FLOODING
Floods are the most frequent type of natural disaster and it do occur when an overflow of water submerges lands that are usually dry. Floods are often caused by heavy rainfall, rapids snowmelt or a storm surge from a tropical cyclone or tsunami in costal areas.
CAUSES OF FLOODING IN OUR ENVIRONMENT
RAIN FALL :
When there is more rain than the soil can absorb, the excess water quickly runs into rivers and creeks, overwhelming storm drains and ditches and causing a flash flood.
WASTE DISPOSAL :
In situations where wastes are disposed into drainage system or water channels, the free flow of water when it rains becomes hindered which leads to an overflow of the water channel which sometimes give rise to flooding.
DEFORESTATION :
Deforestation leads to frequent floods and droughts. It happens because the soil loses its fertility over time and also water holding capacity of the soil gets reduced. In the presence of trees, the soil has a high water-holding capacity and it reduces the risk of floods in the heavy rainfall.
NARROW STREAM/RIVER CHANNELS :
Streams flood. Flooding is part of stream behavior. The rate of which streams erode, transportation, and given sediments deeply increases during flooding. A flood happens when the water depth in a stream is more then the depth of the stream channel and goes beyond the stream channel into the surrounding dry land.
SNOW MELT :
Snowmelt is runoff water that occurs as a result of melting fallen snow. When there are significant amounts of packed snow and ice on the ground around your home or nearby, warmer temperatures cause the frozen substances to melt and move, leading to flooding in neighborhoods, streets, fields and bodies of water.
HOW WE CAN STOP FLOODING IN OUR SOCIETY
Some common ways or easy steps we could used for flood control are installation of rocks beams, rock-raps, sand bags or maintenance of normal slopes with vegetation or application of soil cement on sleeper slopes and constructions of expansion of drainage other methods includes dyke dans and retention basins or detention.
EFFECTS OR CONSEQUENCES OF FLOODING
The primary effects of flooding including as follows : Loss of life , damaging of buildings and other infrastructures such as bridges, sewages system roadways and canals. Flood frequently damages power generation which then has knock on effects caused by the loss of power and many more .
Somewhere in Lagos State, a mother, her two children and sister died when their building collapsed due to heavy downpour.
In summary, flooding is very toxic and harmful to human life so we should all endeavor to follow the guidelines as listed above.
I do sincerely thank you all for going through my second post in this community even if my first post wasn't curated😩😃.
