Water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I’m going to talk about floods in Spain. Floods are an enormous area of study, so I’m going to limit my talk to the relationship between floods and the human enviroment. Then, I will go on to talk about the effects of flooding. I have divided these effects into “Public” and

“Private” which raises interesting questions about obligations and responsibilities. Finally, I will end my talk with a philosophical reflection on the connection between humans and the forces of nature.

Flood: “The rising of a body of water and its overflowing onto normally dry land”This is the English dictionary definition of flood, and

what it means is that when an area of normally dry land becomes waterlogged.

It’s a natural process; the rising and falling of the tides, the annual surge of spring melt water overflowing the river banks. But floods are not always disasters. For instance, in Doñana it’s essential for the maintenance of the biological eco-system. However, in other parts of Spain we find a conflict between this natural process and the human desire to control our enviroment.

Why urban floods happen.• At the most simplistic level, floods happen

because too much water comes in to an area, and not enough water can leave.

• Floods are a natural phenomena. The only explanation for urban floods is that the urban settlement is always built in the wrong place, and the human being just tries to control the enviroment and not adapt to it. However, a flood prevention plan can mitigate the effects of the flood.

Some of the causes of urban flooding are:

Torrential rain

Melting

snow

High tides

Storm

surge

UrbanFloodin

g

Snow melting.Torrential rains.

Storm Surge.

Effects of flooding.

Public •These are damage to public amenities, eg; streets, public buildings, sewer systems, disruption of public services such as transport, electricity, etc.

Private •These are damage to private property: residences, cars, businesses, etc.

YouTube - inundaciones en calpe.mht - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnYks45pT3g&feature=related

Public damagePrivate damage

Who foots the bill?

So, is flood damage the result of negligence in town planning, or is it an “Act of God” which no-one can prevent?

The answer to this question defines the responsibility of who pays for the damage.

This picture illustrates the question I’ve raised before.

•Is it her responsibility? She’s somebody’s grandma who wakes up to find that a life time effort has been washed away in a single night.

•Can we put the blame on God? If so, why has he punished this poor woman? •Is it the fault of the authorities who decide where the houses are built? To what extent can a natural disaster be prevented?

A blessing in disguise?Nowadays, floods are seen

as a disaster. But in ancient cultures, they were seen as some kind of purification, as in the Egyptian culture. In the Bible it was a punishment for sinful human behaviour, so if we suffer a flood maybe we should ask ourselves whether there is a reason for the flood, or maybe it could be a new beginning.

But, why water?I think it’s because water has always been a symbol

of change. As Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535–c. 475 BCE) said: “Everything flows, nothing remains the same.”

Water is also seen as some kind of “purification tool”, which changes the enviroment in a dramatic fashion, but without destroying it, as fire d0es.

Human society desesperately needs water, because it’s an esential part of life. But when mother earth gives it to us, it’s mostly too much water. We want nature to provide us the exact quantity of water we need. But that’s not possible, just because we’ll never control nature.

So we find ourselves with a eternal dilemna: we need mother nature but we’ll never control her.

Flood vocabulary.Watershed Area: Land that naturally drains into a

river, creek or lake.Levee: An earthern structure used for flood

protection of lands adjacent to a river.Mitigate: Plan ahead to reduce possible damage.Storm Surge: When an offshore storm forces

flood waters on land.Dike (u.k.): An embankment for preventing

flooding.River Basin: The entire tract of country drained

by a river and its tributaries.Waterlogged: Saturated with water.