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I agree with the sentiment but dams can only do so much. In particular, dams don't absorb water, they move the problem somewhere else. There may be enough unuse

I agree with the sentiment but dams can only do so much. In particular, dams don't absorb water, they move the problem somewhere else. There may be enough unused room outside Brisbane, I don't now the situation, but in any area of sufficient population density that won't be the case, unless you want 10 meter high dams throughout your country side. In the Netherlands where I live, dams are combined with controlled flooding areas. The dams should hold most of the time, but the system is designed in such a way that once in 20-50 years when there is too much water it can be directed to low value areas like farm fields. That's logical to an engineer, but it takes serious political courage to build a dam in the middle of an area where there is no water to account for a once in 50 year event, and even more courage to declare one side of that dam as "lower value". It makes economic sense though, 10 meter high dams are very expensive (and ugly), more expensive than rebuilding a few houses every generation.

brc 16y ago
There's plenty of space in the Brisbane river valley for more Dams. One was planned about 15 years back, the land was purchased and it was ready to go. One political group campaigned on having it scrapped so the land was sold off. The largest Dam servicing Brisbane has a total capacity of 220% - that being 100% is the 'normal' water storage level, the rest is for flood mitigation. So the Dam can temporarily hold more than double its usual capacity. Elsewhere in this topic you'll see people discussing whether that flood mitigation capacity was used correctly, and only time and investigation will tell. I would assume any new Dams planned would also incorporate a flood mitigation feature, particularly after this last flood. The population density outside of Brisbane drops very low, very quickly. It's nothing like the Netherlands. Australia has one of the lowest population densities in the world, whereas I think the Netherlands has one of the highest.

brc 16y ago

There's plenty of space in the Brisbane river valley for more Dams. One was planned about 15 years back, the land was purchased and it was ready to go. One political group campaigned on having it scrapped so the land was sold off. The largest Dam servicing Brisbane has a total capacity of 220% - that being 100% is the 'normal' water storage level, the rest is for flood mitigation. So the Dam can temporarily hold more than double its usual capacity. Elsewhere in this topic you'll see people discussing whether that flood mitigation capacity was used correctly, and only time and investigation will tell. I would assume any new Dams planned would also incorporate a flood mitigation feature, particularly after this last flood. The population density outside of Brisbane drops very low, very quickly. It's nothing like the Netherlands. Australia has one of the lowest population densities in the world, whereas I think the Netherlands has one of the highest.