SF Chronicle Opinion: Dams and Levees can increase flood risk

The San Francisco Chronicle ran an opinion article this weekend about the effectiveness of dams and levees for flood control. Floods are one of the most destructive natural disasters and are becoming more frequent. This article points out that the dams and levees we have engineered to deal with them can sometimes exacerbate flooding when it occurs. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Flood damages have soared around the world in recent decades for a variety of reasons. Global warming is worsening storms; we’ve deforested and paved over watersheds; and more people are living and working on floodplains (there are few better examples of this than the fast-sprawling cities of California’s Central Valley). But a key factor behind the spiraling flood damages is the very flood-control measures supposed to protect us. Flood damages soar when engineering projects reduce the capacity of river channels, block natural drainage, increase the speed of floodwaters and cause the subsidence of deltas and coastal erosion. In addition, “hard path” flood control based on dams and levees can ruin the ecological health of rivers and estuaries.

Dams and levees are not fail-proof, and when they do fail, they do so spectacularly and sometimes catastrophically. Worse, they provide a false sense of security that encourages risky development on vulnerable floodplains. When New Orleans was devastated in 2005, the primary cause was not Hurricane Katrina, but the failure of the city’s poorly conceived and maintained flood defenses. Sacramento lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers behind a network of aging levees. California’s capital is widely regarded as second only to New Orleans among major U.S. cities in the risk it faces from major flooding.

To read the full text of the article from the San Francisco Chronicle, click here.

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