flood is an overflow of water onto land that is usually dry
4 meteorological factors causing floods?
Prolonged rainfall
Intense Storms
Extreme monsoonal rainfall
snowmelt
intense storms cause flooding as rainfall is fast onset and storm surges from sea leaves high levels of standing water - known as flash floods
3 ways human actions increase risk of floods?
floodplain use
land use change
hard engineering
floodplain use increase flood risks as due to rapid urbanisation impermeable structures are built on floodplains to accommodate for rising population which stops infiltration
hard engineering like removing meanders increases risk of flood as further down stream will face an increased rate of flow
3 socio-economic impacts of flooding?
economic activity - flooding makes businesses unsafe to open or inaccessible to customers
infrastructure - transport and communication disrupted
settlement - damage to property and loss of life
3 environmental impacts of flooding?
groundwater stores contaminated
soils contaminated and organisms die
eutrophication occurs causing algal bloom which removes oxygen from water, killing aquatic life
what is the case study for flooding?
UK Floods 2007
UK Floods 2007
caused by exceedingly high rainfall
unreasonably low pressure systems caused by polar jet streams more south than usual
