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Looking at the comments here right now, it seems like "don't build in valleys" is the new "but humans didn't cause it" which was the new "climate change is a ho

Looking at the comments here right now, it seems like "don't build in valleys" is the new "but humans didn't cause it" which was the new "climate change is a hoax." The thing is, in the case of Germany at least, the reason people built there is because it hadn't flooded in those places in nearly a thousand years. That's why it's called a 500-year flood (due to the probability of it occurring.) They would have been washed away long ago if that weren't the case. I didn't follow the weather running up to or the analysis following the flooding in Henan but in Germany the flooding was caused by a dense low pressure system hanging around too long and there seems to be consensus that this was caused by the disruption of the jet stream and increased temperatures. We're not going to solve climate change by blaming people for living in the wrong place.

mschuster91 5y ago
> We're not going to solve climate change by blaming people for living in the wrong place. German here. We can and must blame politicians for handing out build permits in areas that once were flood beds for rivers that have been "straightened out". Also, ffs we need to restore rivers to their natural beds again. The pictures of the flooded areas exactly show that the rivers took their millennia old paths back!
- guerrilla 5y ago
  Yes, the Greens have been talking about it forever, but don't use it as a distraction from the fact that there were actually torrential rains and that most of these places were relatively safe without such torrential rains.
  - praptak 5y ago
    It doesn't have to be one xor the other.
praptak 5y ago
I don't think it is about just not building in valleys. There are two approaches to floods: one is to leave enough space for the river to meander, flood and soak into the ground. The other is to regulate the river - dig it deeper, more straight, build embankments, basically making it an effective drain pipe. The second approach was popular in Europe because economy: it frees up valuable land (hence "building in valleys") and makes the river useful for things like transport. But it has downsides: it destroys habitat and efficient drainage here means a flood elsewhere. And then when you have superefficient drainage everywhere, it becomes a problem for ground water levels. So "don't build in valleys" is rather: don't over-regulate rivers to make buildable land.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  You're still missing the point though. This wasn't a problem for most places before they started getting six months of rain in two days due to the disruption of the jet stream.

mschuster91 5y ago

> We're not going to solve climate change by blaming people for living in the wrong place. German here. We can and must blame politicians for handing out build permits in areas that once were flood beds for rivers that have been "straightened out". Also, ffs we need to restore rivers to their natural beds again. The pictures of the flooded areas exactly show that the rivers took their millennia old paths back!

guerrilla 5y ago
Yes, the Greens have been talking about it forever, but don't use it as a distraction from the fact that there were actually torrential rains and that most of these places were relatively safe without such torrential rains.
- praptak 5y ago
  It doesn't have to be one xor the other.

praptak 5y ago

I don't think it is about just not building in valleys. There are two approaches to floods: one is to leave enough space for the river to meander, flood and soak into the ground. The other is to regulate the river - dig it deeper, more straight, build embankments, basically making it an effective drain pipe. The second approach was popular in Europe because economy: it frees up valuable land (hence "building in valleys") and makes the river useful for things like transport. But it has downsides: it destroys habitat and efficient drainage here means a flood elsewhere. And then when you have superefficient drainage everywhere, it becomes a problem for ground water levels. So "don't build in valleys" is rather: don't over-regulate rivers to make buildable land.

guerrilla 5y ago
You're still missing the point though. This wasn't a problem for most places before they started getting six months of rain in two days due to the disruption of the jet stream.