Floods can be destructive to humans and the natural environment, but they also help to drive biodiversity and are essential to the functioning of many ecosystems. Whether you regard floods as good or bad, one thing is for certain: The world would be a very different place without them.
Even if the flood damage in your home is not related to a plumbing problem, the conditions inside your home could still be unsanitary. Floodwater can put you and your family at risk of disease, and there may be chemical hazards that you have to be worried about, too.
What are the positive and negative impacts of flooding?
Whilst flood events are devastating to humans they are a natural occurrence that can provide negative and positive important environmental impacts. Flooding helps spread organic material, nutrients, and sediments which enrich floodplain soils.
The next thing we wondered was: what are the long term effects of flooding?
Long term effects of flooding include: job losses. Water base diseases being spread. Short term effects of flooding mean what happened immediately after flooding or during the flood. Long term effects of flooding mean how were people effected months after the flood.
The structural damage that is associated with flooding can happen both in the short term and the long term. It won’t take very long for you to notice flooring and wall damage, for example. However, as time goes on, a water-logged home that hasn’t been cleaned and repaired properly can be subject to much more serious structural damage.
The ultimate long-term result of flooding is the loss of life, whether human or animal. Since 2015, an average of 100 people in the United States are fatally injured every year due to floods. Pets, too, are irreplaceable, and their loss impacts their owners for years to come.
Why are floods important to the environment?
While floods bring hazards, they also bring nutrients and essential components for life. Seasonal floods can renew ecosystems, providing life-giving waters in more ways than one. Floods transport vital nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic material, to the surrounding land.
Replenish groundwater: Given the fact that population is increasing and that the demand for potable water seems to be exponentially increasing, flood waters would indeed be a godsend, in a manner of speaking.
You could be thinking “What are the benefits of flooding the plain?”
For one, flooding the plain will help recharge and renew all the natural aquifers and for another, flood waters should help increase the groundwater level, thereby making it all the more accessible to others. For example, the devastating floods that had hit Chennai 5 years before increasing the groundwater level by 15 feet.