A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land. The European Union (EU) Floods Directive defines a flood as a covering by water of land not normally covered by water. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows or breaks levees, with the result that some of the water escapes its usual boundaries, or may be due to accumulation of rainwater on saturated ground in an areal flood.
While the size of a lake or other body of water will vary with seasonal changes in precipitation and snow melt, it is not a significant flood unless such escapes of water endanger land areas used by man like a village, city or other inhabited area.
Floods can also occur in rivers, when flow exceeds the capacity of the river channel, particularly at bends or meanders. Floods often cause damage to homes and businesses if they are placed in natural flood plains of rivers. While flood damage can be virtually eliminated by moving away from rivers and other bodies of water, since time out of mind, people have lived and worked by the water to seek sustenance and capitalize on the gains of cheap and easy travel and commerce by being near water. That humans continue to inhabit areas threatened by flood damage is evidence that the perceived value of living near the water exceeds the cost of repeated periodic flooding.
Some floods develop slowly, while others such a flash floods, can develop in just a few minutes and without visible signs of rain. Additionally, floods can be local, impacting a neighborhood or community, or very large, affecting entire river basins
The word "flood" comes from the Old English flod, a word common to Germanic languages (compare German Flut, Dutch vloed from the same root as is seen in flow, float; also compare with Latin fluctus, flumen). Deluge myths are mythical stories of a great flood sent by a deity or deities to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution, and are featured in the mythology of many cultures.
Read more about Flood: Control, Benefits, Computer Modelling, Deadliest Floods
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... Below is a list of the deadliest floods worldwide, showing events with death tolls at or above 100,000 individuals ... Death toll Event Location Date 2,500,000–3,700,000 1931 China floods China 1931 900,000–2,000,000 1887 Yellow River (Huang He) flood China 1887 500,000–700,000 1938 Yellow River (Huang He ... China 1975 230,000 Indian Ocean tsunami Indonesia 2004 145,000 1935 Yangtze river flood China 1935 100,000+ St ...
... The Genesis Flood The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications is a 1961 book by young earth creationists John C ... Morris that "produced a stunning renaissance of flood geology," elevating the hypothesis "to a position of fundamentalist orthodoxy" while both polarizing ...
Famous quotes containing the word flood:
“The mighty river flowing dark and deep,
With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides
Vague-sounding through the City’s sleepless sleep,
Is named the River of the Suicides;”
—James Thomson (1834–1882)
“I am advised that there is an unexpended balance of about $45,000 of the fund appropriated for the relief of the sufferers by flood upon the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and I recommend that authority be given to use this fund to meet the most urgent necessities of the poorer people in Oklahoma.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have “really happened,” or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)