Flooding is an overflowing of water onto land that is normally dry.

Floods are some of the most

frequent and dangerous natural disasters that can occur. They impact the area, they have affected,
economically, environmentally and socially.

Floods are caused by many things. Most floods occur due to water overflows onto land that is
normally dry. For example, the Carlisle 2005 flood was caused due to steady heavy rainfall that had
been falling for 36 hours straight, an already saturated basin and the sheer volume of water that had
already accumulated over time. But not all floods are due to heavy rainfall only, the Bangladesh
flood of 2004 was due to the monsoon climate it experiences seasonally, water run off
(deforestation), coordinated peak flow for its tributaries, snowmelt (high temperatures), bad
embankments and Bangladesh is 80% delta and flood plain.

There are three main types of effects of floods, these are social, economic and environmental
effects. In Carlisle some of the main social effects were 3 deaths of elderly people, 120 people were
injured and 1925 houses were lost. In addition to that 3000 people lost their jobs and the same
amount of people were displaced. Some schools were forced to close down for a couple of weeks
after the flood but all eventually resumed operation. Economic effects included the total cost of the
flood which was 300 million pounds and over 300 businesses were forced to shut down due to
premises destruction. Some environmental effects included the pollution of water, soil erosion, soil
poisoning and a lot of produce was washed away and quite a bit of land was destroyed. On first
glance such effects seem very grave yet the effects of the Bangladesh flood were much worse.
Socially Bangladesh had 959 deaths, 850,000 houses were destroyed and 10.5 million people were
left homeless. 1200 schools were permanently closed due to the impact of the flood and 20 million
people were left starving. Some economic aspects of the flood were a total cost of 2 billion dollars
and one of the most widespread industries, clothing industry, had a 205 decrease in production.
Environmentally Bangladesh lost 1 million hectares of farmland, there water was polluted and their
soil was eroded and poisoned. Overall, we can see the devastation floods can leave especially in
countries that have a low income and heavily rely on outside help.

The most important thing to think about after a flood is how to either completely prevent it from
happening again or partially reduce the damage that will be created should it happen again. In
Carlisle there were 3 main options to alleviate part of the city, flood storage and raise defences. The
alleviated part of the city would consist of mostly renewing, raising and extending already existing
flood banks. In terms of flood storage, a dam would be built and start reducing the amount of water
that flew into the Caldew. Raising defences would just involve building walls and raising concrete
embankments. The Bangladeshi government suggested that shelters and warning systems should be
built, that dams would be built, there would be higher and better flood control and that newer
embankments would be built. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to Bangladesh’s flooding
problem. The size of the problem, the extreme poverty of the country, and the difficulty of
identifying the exact causes of the flooding makes the task almost impossible.

Floods are extremely dangerous, when rivers flood, they can put lives in danger, damage property
and disrupt people’s normal way of life. Flooding in most areas of the world is due to a combination
of natural factors (heavy rainfall, snowmelt…) and human mismanagement (deforestation…). Being
aware of how flooding can occur can help us to better prepare should we see increase in our rivers
water levels, be aware of how much damage flooding can actually cause and that preventing
flooding is never an easy task.