LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Floods: People
built 642 days ago
To minimize the damage caused by floods, people can utilize protection through the control of water. Several methods have been used trough time to ward off floods and enable man to use floodplains. Dikes and levees hold the water off the land and confine it within the usual main channels of flow. Dikes are the most popular method of flood protection in the world. First built in the upper areas of the floodplain, dikes were later built higher and closer to the rivers, increasing costs and the difficulty of maintenance. Dikes, levees and flood walls provide the most direct means of flood protection.
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The tragic events of the 1953 floods not only highlighted the destructive power of storm floods, but ... highlighted the problems associated with the existing flood warning system. Thankfully, lessons have been learnt from the disaster and improved flood warning systems are now in place. Today, the Environment Agency is the single body responsible for flood warning and flood defence in England and Wales. The Agency currently has an advanced warning system in place which aims to give homes a minimum of 2 hours notice before imminent flooding. In April 2000 the Agency established a National Flood Warning Centre in Surrey to provide a focus for improving forecasting, warning and communications to help people in flood risk areas.
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Places that bore the brunt of the December 2004 tsunami, are now reeling under floods, and fearing the next cyclone. The quake that hit Pakistan and India is too recent to forget. "Disasters have forced countries to postpone national development programmes and have contributed to worsening already precarious social, economic and environmental conditions, particularly in human settlements," states www.unchs.org, the site of The United Nations Human Settlements Programme a.k.a. UN-HABITAT. "In the last decade, more than 200 million people were affected annually by natural disasters — seven times more than those affected by conflict," it informs. "Natural hazards become disasters when they impact the people and assets that are susceptible to their destructive effects, and nowhere is this more significant than in the world's cities, towns and villages," explains the site.
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During the 20th century, floods were the number-one natural disaster in the United States in terms of number of lives lost and property damage. They can occur at any time of the year, in any part of the country, and at any time of the day or night. Most lives are lost when people are swept away by flood currents, whereas most property damage results from inundation by sediment-laden water. Flood currents ... possess tremendous destructive power, as lateral forces can demolish buildings and erosion can undermine bridge foundations and footings leading to the collapse of structures. The accompanying map and table locate and describe 32 of the most significant floods of the 20th century.
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The seasonal floods have occurred in Amhara, Afar and Tigray in northern Ethiopia, in Gambella in the West and in SNNP in the South. A total of 42,000 people have been displaced. Some are living in temporary shelters such as schools and mobile health clinics or under plastic sheeting. Others have been taken in by relatives or friends.
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The frequency of floods in Asia and the Pacific has been increasing, and with higher water levels being measured with every new flood, more people are being affected. Floods affect not only the poor: in some cases, flooding has caused people with marginally higher incomes to descend into poverty as a result of flood-related losses.
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