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Pakistan could have prevented this with better water management practices/ more dams along the Indus.

ryzvonusef 4y ago
No, that's a myth that needs to end. Yes, in SOME of the places, SOME of the floods water could have been stopped by dams. But overwhelmingly, the floods are beyond the scope of any damming technology, it's just..... SO-MUCH-WATER! and all of it in in one go, in a very short period of time! I can't drink a weeks water intake in one gulp. We had a headworks just break and give way because of the sheer supply of water broke the concrete structure of the barrier. This is a barrage that survived the equally horrific 2010 floods. And this is besides the fact that a lot of the areas simply aren't dam-able. This is not one big flood, these are multiple, separate floods all occurring in the same time. A dam on that big river a hundred miles away from me will prevent floods from that direction, but can't do anything about the sudden cloud burst coming from the other direction.
- kumarvvr 4y ago
  These types of situations have lesser impact if there is good water management.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > the floods are beyond the scope of any damming technology Claiming this could have been prevented with dams is asinine. But claiming it’s beyond technology is defeatist. 10x surges are never pretty, but they shouldn’t be this bad. There are water management practices which can manage order of magnitude surges. (There were dams which breached, for instance.) This usually involves creating diversions and dedicated sacrificial zones (flood plains) between the expected surge sites and a reservoir (ideally, the ocean). If the problem is unaddressable, due to lack of funds or politics, the areas should be de-populated and/or evacuation procedures put in place.
  - freemint 4y ago
    > dedicated sacrificial zones (flood plains) This requires control where people house and the ability to remove people who do not follow the law. This is not water management infrastructure this is social infrastructure. > the areas should be de-populated and/or evacuation procedures put in place. They would populate on their own if were able to move freely. The volume of people displaced however would end up in the "imperial core" and apparently we can't have that

No, that's a myth that needs to end. Yes, in SOME of the places, SOME of the floods water could have been stopped by dams. But overwhelmingly, the floods are beyond the scope of any damming technology, it's just..... SO-MUCH-WATER! and all of it in in one go, in a very short period of time! I can't drink a weeks water intake in one gulp. We had a headworks just break and give way because of the sheer supply of water broke the concrete structure of the barrier. This is a barrage that survived the equally horrific 2010 floods. And this is besides the fact that a lot of the areas simply aren't dam-able. This is not one big flood, these are multiple, separate floods all occurring in the same time. A dam on that big river a hundred miles away from me will prevent floods from that direction, but can't do anything about the sudden cloud burst coming from the other direction.

kumarvvr 4y ago
These types of situations have lesser impact if there is good water management.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> the floods are beyond the scope of any damming technology Claiming this could have been prevented with dams is asinine. But claiming it’s beyond technology is defeatist. 10x surges are never pretty, but they shouldn’t be this bad. There are water management practices which can manage order of magnitude surges. (There were dams which breached, for instance.) This usually involves creating diversions and dedicated sacrificial zones (flood plains) between the expected surge sites and a reservoir (ideally, the ocean). If the problem is unaddressable, due to lack of funds or politics, the areas should be de-populated and/or evacuation procedures put in place.
- freemint 4y ago
  > dedicated sacrificial zones (flood plains) This requires control where people house and the ability to remove people who do not follow the law. This is not water management infrastructure this is social infrastructure. > the areas should be de-populated and/or evacuation procedures put in place. They would populate on their own if were able to move freely. The volume of people displaced however would end up in the "imperial core" and apparently we can't have that