Seeing that our rivers cannot cope with the excess rainfall, would not dredging the rivers be a answer ?

Answer 1

Yes. But that is extremely expensive. Millions and millions of dollars expensive. I'm from Portland Oregon and the President of the United States had to get involved when Portland wanted to get more funds to dredge the river another 3 feet deep. That's how expensive it is and Portland's economy is mostly based on ship trafic so it is top priority here.

Answer 2

It was done with the Colorado River years ago. But, all rivers cannot be dredged. Many of them are tributaries from larger sources of water and the backup to the main source(s) will trigger flooding around them. Some rivers join others, like here in Connecticut. The solution would be to build dykes along rivers that are vulnerable to flooding. The Naugatuck River in Connecticut was generally an innocent stream until two tropical storms in succession dumped over 13 inches of rain on Connecticut. The innocent stream became a raging torrent and wiped out many town buildings, bridges and cars off the map that occured in 1955. I was a young kid at the time, but it is something that I will never forget. Dykes were built along the Naugatuck. In addition, three new dams were erected. With all the rain we had last October when over 24 inches fell over a continued period of three weeks, the dykes proved they can handle excess rainfall.

Answer 3

No. Dredging is slow, expensive, environmentally destructive (damaging habitat and increasing erosion), and is only used to help ships pass through channels that are not naturally deep enough. Flood control is done with dams. But nothing can cope with a major flood. Floods are just too powerful.

Anyway, the unusual rains will stop at some time, and go back to usual.

Answer 4

No.

You would spend billions adding very little capacity to the rivers this way, and you'd cause all kinds of enivronmental damage and get the water very dirty, and then you'd need to put the mud somewhere, and then the river will just silt up again.

Better to save and restore wetlands and forests around the rivers so the water won't go into the river so fast in the first place.

Answer 5

It would certainly help, because it's well acknowledged that until recently many rivers were regularly dredged and river banks well maintained, however all of this has been cut back very much in recent years, inc the maintenance of flood defences.

Answer 6

I am sure that would be too expensive. Most of the time, the rivers can handle the rain fall, its just the exception that causes the problems. There will always be floods, that is just the way the system works.

Answer 7

very expansive and may not even work, especially in weather like we have now. The problem is that the areas that flood are the rivers floodplains (areas that are supposed to flood) however as we have houses on them it doesn't really help. Only option is to either build bigger defences or make run-off areas away from built up areas so that when it floods, it floods the countryside rather than towns and cities

Answer 8

I think the problem is more that we build too many houses on flood plains, house builders really should consider more carefully where they build houses in the first place, given that Global Climate Change means basically we are going to get a lot more of this wet weather in the future.

Answer 9

You would be better off running pipe line underground and use the pressure of the water to run turbans to generate electricity that would be two problems solved for the price of one .

Answer 10

Yeah. That or maybe dig the seas deeper and use the stuff that comes out to build the land higher, eh? Lol!