Flood

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

Famous quotes containing the word flood:

    Hearing the low sound
    of a cloud scattering rain
    at midnight
    and thinking for an eternity
    on his absent young wife,
    a traveller heaved a sigh
    and with a flood of tears
    howled the whole night long.
    Now, villagers won’t let him stay
    in their place anymore.
    Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)

    The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
    emerges strange and lovely.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    The vines of her arms
    didn’t cling to the ends of his clothes,
    or did she plant herself in the doorway,
    hurl herself at his feet,
    or utter the word “Stay!”
    But as that fool began to go
    at the time when it was dark with swarming clouds,
    the slim girl blocked her lover’s way
    with only a rising river
    made with her flood of tears.
    Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)