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.
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... However, the following year a new record flood level was set ... its banks and peaked slightly above the 1999 flood level ... Work started in Autumn 2003 to build new flood defences for Stamford Bridge and in Autumn 2004, work on the defences were finished ...
... 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 ... Ocean tsunami Indonesia 2004 145,000 1935 Yangtze river flood China 1935 100,000+ St ...
... The flood has had a lasting impact on Florence, economically and culturally ... in an 1969 interview, recalled the impact of the flood on Florence's residents "The only thing you could do was watch and be helpless ... children?'" It was reported that 101 people lost their lives in the flood waters ...
... the infallible Word of God," Whitcomb's section provides biblical arguments for a universal flood as well as attempting to refute non-geological difficulties with the biblical account ... Whitcomb specifically addresses the local flood theories of Bernard Ramm—who has far more entries in the index than any one else ... work with a review of how geological theories had influenced Christian views of the Flood since the beginning of the nineteenth century and draws the "one ...
... 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 evangelicals and carrying young-earth creationism "to ...
Famous quotes containing the word flood:
“The great war that broke so suddenly upon the world two years ago, and which has swept up within its flame so great a part of the civilized world, has affected us very profoundly.... With its causes and its objects we are not concerned. The obscure fountains from which its stupendous flood has burst we are not interested to search for or explore.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“There are flood and drouth
Over the eyes and in the mouth,
Dead water and dead sand
Contending for the upper hand.
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth.
This is the death of the earth.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Insurrection:... insurrection as soon as circumstances allow: insurrection, strenuous, ubiquitous: the insurrection of the masses: the holy war of the oppressed: the republic to make republicans: the people in action to initiate progress. Let the insurrection announce with its awful voice the decrees of God: let it clear and level the ground on which its own immortal structure shall be raised. Let it, like the Nile, flood all the country that it is destined to make fertile.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)