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 river and flood its banks. Groundwater flow will stop water getting to the river channel quicker but it will eventually get there. Also if storage of water is held somewhere this can increase the risk of flooding. For example surface storage occurs when the ground has become saturated so no more excess precipitation can infiltrate onto the soil. When this happens, water forms on the surface as puddles, boggy areas or ponds. Storage can also occur underground as groundwater store.  This is when water droplets are held in pore spaces in the rock. This will increase risk of flooding as the water might become saturated and excess precipitation will have no where to go apart from to run over the surface, (surface run-off) and into the river.

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Human causes:

        Human causes occur when things happen due to the society of human beings. An example of this is when a river floods due to excess water being delivered to its channel quicker. Drains and roads send rain water straight to the river through underground tunnels. This is a physical cause of surface run-off as it happens due to human society. Having concrete roads and paths also increase the risk flooding in roads and especially drains if the situation ...

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