Flood Management Under Changing Climate

Abstract

Many researchers have worked on global warming during the last decades, because its consequences are affecting all areas of our life. Increasing of planet’s temperature is main cause of global warming. According to NASA, the Earth average temperature has increased about 1 degree Fahrenheit during the twentieth century. This increase in the temperature may be seen small change, but its impacts are inevitable problems leading lasting scar on the planet. Global warming has many negative effects on the atmosphere, of which floods are the most devastating ones. Natural processes that cause rain, snowfall, hailstorms, and rise in sea levels are reliant on many diverse factors. If the weather gets warmer, evaporation processes from both land and sea increase. If evaporation increases and cannot be compensated by precipitation, this leads to drought. It means scarcity of water resources and crop famine particularly in the regions where the temperature is already high. If evaporated water falls on unexpected time and unexpected place, it causes flood. Increasing temperature is the reason of the melting of ice and glaciers rapidly, which leads to raising the sea level, which is another form of floods. Heavy rainfalls and more often thunderstorms, which cause flood, are among the global warming effect of climate change. Floods have already caused significant loss of life and properties in human life. It is predicted that the amount of precipitation per unit area will increase with the effect of climate change, and also foreseen the rising of the number and intensity of floods. In this case, it is expected that flood damages will increase, too. It may not be possible to prevent floods, but it is possible to reduce the damages resulting from floods. Structural and non-structural measures should be taken to protect against flooding. An integrated river basin management approach and a logical coordinative plan are essential for a sustainable flood management. However, integrated basin development is complex and implies the application of a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach (IPCC, Climate change 2007: Synthesis report. 2007. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4_syr_full_report.pdf. Accessed 24 Oct 2021). Flood management plan studies include (1) inundated areas under possible floods, (2) preparing flood hazard maps for various return periods, (3) preparing flood risk maps, which have the analysis of the potential negative impacts of flood on people, buildings, agricultural areas and infrastructures, and (4) objectives and measures before, during and after the floods. These approaches are presented in this chapter.