Floods

by Allaby, Michael; Garratt, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780816047949
• ISBN10: 0816047944
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-06-01
• Publisher: Facts on File

Summary

Explains the history, behavior, and damage floods can cause, including information on coastal erosion, the effects on agriculture, and where floods are likely to happen.

Table of Contents

Preface: What is a flood?	vii
Introduction	xi
How Water Moves	1	(42)
Where floods happen	1	(8)
El Nino	7	(2)
Evaporation, precipitation, and transpiration	9	(8)
Partial pressure and vapor pressure	14	(2)
Humidity	16	(1)
How the land drains	17	(7)
Rivers	24	(7)
Why it rains more on mountainsides	25	(3)
Kinetic energy	28	(3)
Floodplains and meanders	31	(6)
The Bernoulli effect	35	(2)
Flash floods	37	(6)
Rainstorms	43	(15)
Storms and cloudbursts	43	(7)
Lapse rates and stability	44	(2)
Latent heat and dewpoint	46	(4)
Thunder and lightning	50	(8)
Charge separation	53	(5)
When the Sea Rises	58	(20)
Tsunamis	58	(7)
Tsunami Warning System	65	(1)
Tides	65	(8)
Laws of motion	66	(5)
The Coriolis effect	71	(2)
Tidal surges	73	(5)
Air pressure---highs and lows	74	(4)
Coping with Floods	78	(20)
Monsoons	78	(6)
Intertropical convergence and the equatorial trough	79	(5)
Aquifers, springs, and wells	84	(7)
Vegetation and natural drainage	91	(7)
Floods and Agriculture	98	(14)
The Nile floods and the Aswan Dams	98	(8)
Wet rice farming	106	(6)
The Cost of Floods	112	(33)
Coastal erosion	112	(8)
Glacioisostasy	113	(1)
Isle of the Dead	114	(6)
Saltwater infiltration	120	(5)
Osmosis	120	(5)
Flood damage	125	(6)
Floods and soil erosion	131	(6)
Soil erosion	134	(3)
Floods of the past	137	(8)
Prevention, Warning, and Survival	145	(37)
Land drainage	145	(5)
Wetlands	150	(5)
Levees	155	(6)
Dams	161	(7)
Canalization	168	(3)
Flood prediction	171	(4)
Safety	175	(5)
Appendixes
SI units and conversions	180	(1)
Prefixes and SI units	181	(1)
Bibliography and further reading	182	(7)
Index	189

Excerpts

Praise for the previous edition:
Recommended.—The Book Report
In July 2002, floods in eastern and central Texas were so severe that many counties were declared disaster areas and eight people lost their lives. In August 2002, in central and eastern Europe, flooding caused dozens of deaths and untold damage to irreplaceable cultural and historic sites. In Asia, during the summer of 2002, at least 1,800 people died from flooding. There are floods throughout the world every year, many of them devastating and deadly.
In Floods, Revised Edition, author Michael Allaby has substantially altered, expanded, and in some places rewritten the original text to reflect recent findings and new information on this form of severe weather. Three new chapters explain storms and cloudbursts, thunder and lightning, and monsoons in greater detail. Many new and revised sidebars display explanations or interesting pieces of information about floods and flooding. They explain concepts from atmospheric science, such as partial pressure and vapor pressure; charge separation in storm clouds; and glacioisostasy, as well as explaining why it rains more on mountainsides than it does in valleys. New further reading lists at the conclusion of the book stimulate further research. Students will find this book comprehensive and useful as it explains the phenomenon in clear and accessible language.