Why don't we solve the problems of floodings and droughts by building global waterways.?

Question

Within the United States alone there are states that flood every year and states in drought causing fires and farmlands are at a loss. So why not build waterways to help prevent flooding and send the rain where it is needed. We could view the same predictable flooding on a global scale and build waterways into draught stricken countries and people can farm and thrive.

Problems aren't solved by people who can't think outside the box. This is a question of how to engineer waterways and why don't we , to alleviate life-threatening floods and droughts.

I appreciate the response i received from Kes and I researched the sites. My question is addressing a global concern. I believe the water itself can be used as an energy source as can wind. The waterway need not be underground.

Answer 1

it is cheaper to relocate the people who live in flood-prone and draught areas. seriously.

besides, flooding is kinda good for local agriculture, and re-routing water tend to anger people who live downstream, as well as creating some serious environmental issues (lakes gone, no more fish, soil got salty and kills all the crops)

Answer 2

It would likely be a good idea to create waterways to transport water from where there is too much to where there is too little, especially to replenish ancient (underground) aquifers that are being used up. However, flooding is seasonal and overwhelms even mighty rivers. The link shows how large some river drainage basins can be (hundreds of square miles). All the rain that falls in a drainage basin collects toward low points feeding a river system. Since water is moved with the least energy by gravity, it is difficult to get the water from one low point to another where it is needed without tunneling through mountains or making very deep cuts in the earth. The waterways would have to be very wide to carry a lot of water if the slope (gradient) is not steep. The construction alone could use up enormous amounts of gasoline and diesel oil which must be conserved.

Answer 3

Nice thought, but it isn't feasible. First of all, most flooding occurs because rivers overflow from excessive rains. Regardless of how many "waterways" or canals are constructed, eventually the rainwater is going to end up in a river. The Corps of Engineers has constructed dams and reservoirs to control flooding, and in some cases the lakes are used as a source of irrigation water.

What you're suggesting is to divert water from a river (before it overflows) to upland areas, store it and channel it to dry areas during a drought. What are you going to do with the flood waters if there's no drought for 20 years or so?

Answer 4

People shouldn't be living in flood zones. Also, mother nature knows best, Lake Okeechobee in FL was "high" and Florida Water Management drained a bunch of water off. Then the next year there was a drought and the lake level dropped by a couple of feet. If they had just left the lake alone, the drought wouldn't have been so bad in the first place.

Answer 5

Kes has a good answer.

Consider this idea. When New Orleans flooded the lake rose 5 meters. Its area is 1631 square km or 1,631,000,000 square meters.

The increase in volume is approximately the product of those two. In reality it should be a little larger because it didnt fill a perfectly cylindrical volume.

The total volume is 8,155 square km. The mass of water is one gram per cubic centimeter, or about one kilogram per liter, or about 1000 kilograms per cubic meter, or even about a billion kilograms per cubic kilometer. That gives you moving about 8 trillion kilograms. To lift it up by one meter in with gravitational acceleration of 9.81 m/s^2 you are talkking about 80 trillion joules.

Thats about the same energy as converting one gram of matter completely to energy. With current published nuclear conversion efficiencies, thats about a single nuclear weapon being fully and perfectly utilized to do work.

There is a ton of work being done by sunlight evaporating water, and convection, and precipitation.

Its going to take an astronomical amount of energy to move that water somewhere else.

You need to be able to break even, right, have it cost less than what you get out of it. All real processes have losses. If you are going to expend those astronomical energy amounts, and not get a HUGE return on investment, why not just build a nuclear reactor somewhere else and use that energy?

Answer 6

You have a great vision. I think I see global waterways controlled by enormous autonomous machines. A few hundred years away perhaps. But could sweep the planet faster than railroads did.

Then the sci-fi begins as the machines plot against us and cause droughts and floods were we are least protected from them. One day the machines will control the planet!

Answer 7

It is nice someone is looking global and ready to look beyond U.S.A. The level difference between one water way to other definitely will pose a problem. There have been systems existing in the world where water is pumped to a height and then allowed to fall to generate electricity known as "pumped-storage schemes" which have been economically viable. Civil engineers can add further.
Ramachandran V.

Answer 8

Major constraint for this idea is geological elevations of places. Sea is at o level and moutains are at highet. Always costal regions are prone for heavy rains. It is economically not viable to pump against gravity to hight of mountains. Only nature can help. What you are questioning is going against nature, beaware science or engineering are not mean to go against nature. Floods and draughts are part of corrections done by nature to our por efforts to prove human powers, such as removing jungle and establishing colonies.

Answer 9

Well, we could collect all the rain that fall's for the next few years, using windmills, pump it into the grand cannon, and the desert southwest. Store it there, and in 5 years we will have all the rain in the world. Then we could trade it with other countries, 1 gal. of water for a gal. oil. One gallon of water for one tree. you get the picture...

Answer 10

I agree with the first poster. It might sound good, but it's actually not a good idea. It makes much more sense to just evacuate the people and let the floods happen naturally.