Overflow: The global fight against flooding
Sep 27, 2024 | By: Kieran McConville
There are few disasters that can compare with flooding in terms of impact on lives, livelihoods, and property. Today, while fewer people die directly from extreme flood events around the world, the economic and social costs are soaring.
A world under water
Imagine the scene. The floodwaters are rising rapidly around your home, and you face a deadly choice. Get yourself and your family onto the roof and pray that the whole structure doesn’t get swept away, or take your chances and head for higher ground, in the hope that you all reach safety before the water gets too deep or the flow too strong.
This is the kind of terror that faces millions of people every year from the suburban streets of middle America to isolated hamlets in rural Asia.
"I have experienced two major conflicts but with the flooding crisis, you can’t run away. The problem with this flooding is there is nowhere to run.” Nyepahan Ketket, South Sudan
Gauging the severity of the global flooding problem is tricky, for several reasons. The sheer amount of inundation by water – be it from rain, snow melt, or storm surges – has undoubtedly increased over time, and more people around the world live in flood prone areas today than at any time in history. One study showed that, between the years 2000 and 2015 up to 86 million additional people resided in areas identified as flooded, representing a 24% increase in the proportion of population exposed to floods. It’s reasonable to assume that the numbers have continued to rise since then.
However, the quality of early-warning systems and disaster response mechanisms has improved in parallel, meaning less people are likely to lose their lives today as a result of flooding than in the past. Comparing historical data for countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, both of which have experienced truly historic levels of flooding in recent times, the number of people affected has been enormous, but the rate of fatalities has been relatively low.
Often, if you do manage to survive the flood itself, your troubles have only just begun.
After the flood
The sheer destruction wrought by floods can be immense, at every level.
As the water recedes, homes that haven’t been washed away can become entombed in rapidly solidifying silt and mud, often beyond redemption. Sometimes it can be easier to just start again… if you have enough space to do so.
Family possessions can disappear in a flash or be buried forever, including the very basics needed for everyday survival, like pots, pans, furniture, and food. Crops can either be washed away or left to rot slowly in the sodden earth. Livestock too, often among the most valuable of a family’s assets, may not survive. You may also have lost your mode of transport, be it bicycle, cart, or car.
"When we returned home after the two months, we came back to an utterly devastated place. The roof was no longer in place, it had caved in. It was not fit to live there." Maula Dino, Sindh, Pakistan
Although drinking water generally comes from under the ground, the points of access at ground level make it vulnerable to pollution. Wells, boreholes, and springs can become unusable for extended periods of time. Humans can survive with very little food, but without drinking water you will die within a matter of days.
Floodwater is filthy. It’s a toxic soup of sewage, rotting carcasses, chemicals, and everything else you could imagine. The risks to health in the wake a major flood are huge. Water-borne diseases like cholera and dysentery can spread rapidly, especially among the most vulnerable sections of the population, such as the very old and the very young. Hunger caused by food shortages can also be a factor.
Depending on where you live, it could be a long time before help arrives… if it ever does. Floods also wash away key infrastructure like roads, bridges, communications towers, and electricity pylons, leaving you and your surviving neighbors to fend for yourselves. And forget about those dramatic scenes you see on TV of giant helicopters delivering food and water to isolated communities. Few countries have the capacity (or the money) to airlift supplies at any kind of scale.
You get the picture. Flooding is almost always really, really bad news. (There is actually good flooding, but we’ll get to that shortly.)
Same old story
So, why do people live in flood-prone areas? It seems like a no-brainer to just relocate your family elsewhere, away from the risk. Which would be absolutely the case if life was fair, and the world was an equitable place. But it’s not, and so hundreds of millions of people have little choice but to live where they can, often on marginal land which is increasingly susceptible to flooding.
Take for example the flash floods that recently tore through parts of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. As it happens, one relatively affluent neighborhood experienced some flooding for the first time in living memory – a situation that made international news headlines. But the real suffering happened elsewhere, in informal settlements (also known as slums) like Mathare and Mukuru.
Lack of space means those families with few resources will build their homes on the only available land, often close to streams and rivers. Which is fine… until the rains come. And in April of 2024 they arrived with a fury and intensity rarely seen, transforming waterways into raging torrents that washed away hundreds of flimsy dwellings. Dozens of people died and tens of thousands were displaced.
Half a million people live in Cité Soleil, an informal settlement in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. It clings precariously to the shoreline, at the foot of this sprawling hillside city. When the rains come, everything ends up here, including vast amounts of garbage washed down from above. The urban drainage system can’t cope, and flooding is a constant source of misery for communities already coping with many other challenges. Every brick-built home here has a two-foot-high concrete lip at the doorway, designed to keep floodwaters at bay, but many dwellings are less substantial and much more vulnerable. No home is safe. Valuables and household items are stored on shelves, and furniture is minimal, simply because there’s no point in having nice things if they’re going to be regularly under water.
Bangladesh is quite possibly the most flooded country on earth, literally getting hit from all sides. A nation of 100 million people, it lies on a vast river delta stretching from the shadow of the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. Annual snow melt from the mountains has consistently been increasing as the region warms, sea levels have been rising, and the annual monsoons have been dumping more and more water from above. On several occasions over the past few years, more than two-thirds of the entire country has been under water.
Ironically, residents of the “Char” areas owe their very existence to flood waters, but also find themselves facing an existential challenge as a result of increased flooding. Char is the term for the many alluvial islands made from silt left behind in the rivers of Bangladesh as the annual rains recede and water flow returns to normal. It’s very fertile land, perfect for planting crops, but also – more importantly – it’s available land for people who don’t have any land on the mainland. These families live constantly with the reality of extreme poverty, and with the looming threat of potential annihilation by floods.
Their situation is similar to that of many communities in other countries around the world, who have traditionally relied upon “good” flooding for their livelihood. Like those who each July come down to farm the fertile flood plains of Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, and then retreat late in the year as the rains swell the Shire and Zambezi rivers and the land once again submerges. It’s a system that worked well for generations but has now been thrown into chaos as weather patterns become more erratic, leaving millions of lives and livelihoods at risk.
It never rains… and then it pours. You wouldn’t necessarily associate a country like Somalia with flooding – in fact probably the opposite. The Horn of Africa recently experienced one of the most prolonged droughts in living memory, triggering a massive hunger crisis. When the rains eventually did come, the ground was rock hard and huge amounts of water surged across fields and villages, wreaking destruction and sweeping people and livestock to their deaths. Many communities around the world are now entangled in this complex cycle of droughts and floods, a pattern that is very difficult to predict and prepare for.
What to do?
As the planet warms, the likelihood of destructive flooding will increase, and so too will the number of people who live in harm’s way. Collective international action is probably the last best hope for influencing the future of the Earth’s climate, but that’s not of much use to the people who are dealing with the issue right now.
Concern works in hundreds of flood-affected communities across three continents, and our teams are helping hundreds of thousands of households to cope with the effects of current flooding and to prepare for what lies ahead.
Agricultural plots in northeast Afghanistan are particularly prone to flood damage, primarily because of deforestation in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountain range. As snow melts in the annual spring thaw, huge amounts of water flow downwards, sweeping rocks, gravel, and topsoil through the valleys below. Concern has partnered with mountain communities to protect the watershed by strategically planting trees, installing check dams, and building gabion walls to channel floodwaters away from agricultural lands and villages.
Concern Worldwide Bangladesh has over 50 years of experience in both responding to flood emergencies and helping communities be better prepared for flood events. Mitigation measures include raising homes, livestock pens, and drinking water sources above flood levels, planting stands of protective trees around homesteads, and re-enforcing flood barriers at key locations. Concern teams have also worked with numerous communities in flood-prone areas to strengthen their early warning and communications systems.
In urban areas of Haiti and Sierra Leone, Concern has been involved in the construction and maintenance of vital drainage infrastructure. Regular cash-for-work projects in Port-au-Prince clear drainage canals of debris, to allow water safely through neighborhoods and into the sea. We are also working with local authorities to put in place a regular and affordable waste management system, designed to prevent buildup of detritus in the canals. In Freetown, Concern has built and refurbished drainage systems in vulnerable neighborhoods, in partnership with local communities.
A substantial support program has been put in place by Concern Worldwide for urban communities in Kenya affected by the 2024 floods. This includes household items and cash payments for those who lost their homes.
Farmers in the southern African nation of Malawi have been particularly affected by weather events like Cyclone Idai and Storm Freddy, with tens of thousands of acres of food crops destroyed. Concern has worked closely with communities there to help them recover, providing seeds and tools, and encouraging the use of climate-smart agriculture techniques. Secure storage of harvested crops is also key to preventing a flood disaster from becoming a food crisis.
Pakistan has seen huge displacement of population by flooding in recent years and Concern teams have been involved in numerous emergency response activities, often on a massive scale. The USAID-funded RAPID program has supported hundreds of local organizations over the past ten years to reach millions of flood-affected people with vital assistance.
Growing food in Somaliland can be difficult at the best of times, so flash flooding can be an unwelcome complication. Simple but effective techniques such as building earth berms around crops can help preserve precious water during droughts and protect crops from being washed away by heavy rains.
An existential risk
Flooding is perhaps the most destructive of all the natural disasters that confront mankind, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. For those at risk – and that’s as much as one-fifth of the world’s population – the need for protection and mitigation is fundamental to their survival. Key priorities include securing people, property, livestock, crops, and drinking water, and having early warning systems and rapid response mechanisms in place for the inevitable arrival of the next flood.
