Describe and explain the physical and human causes of flooding and the possible solutions that may be undertaken to prevent flooding and to deal with it.

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Flooding Essay.

Describe and explain the physical and human causes of flooding and the possible solutions that may be undertaken to prevent flooding and to deal with it.

There are many factors that contribute to the causes of flooding. These causes can either be human, (things that happen due to human life and civilisation) or physical, (things that happen naturally to cause flooding).

Physical causes:

The drainage basin is the area of which the river drains its water from. The boundaries are marked by the watershed. There are many different ways of which water can enter the river channel. Some ways are quicker that others. The quickest are examples like surface run-off. This happens when the rate of precipitation exceeds the rate of infiltration, so it flows over the top of the surface and into the river. The slowest ways for water to travel are groundwater flow. Precipitation has to infiltrate through the soil then pass horizontally through permeable rock and into the river. These can increase the risk of flooding as the water is getting to the river quicker. This will cause a mass excess of water to run into the