Houston Urban Flood

Think twice before moving to a city. Cities have been creating more environmental problems as we continue to build and expand. As we spread towards vast areas and build on top of them, we act as a barrier in between the Earth and the sky not letting anything through. If we continue with what we are doing, then we will dig our own graves along with the environments. When we build a city we leave nowhere for the water to go when it rains. The water is stuck on the surface and evaporates almost immediately if it is only a little, but if there is heavy rainfall, it will cause major floods leading to many unwanted outcomes that affect everyone. We could reduce the frequency and impacts of Urban flooding in many different ways by just changing our

An example of an urban flood is a recent event Houston's flood. Bogost writes in Houston's Flood Is a Design Problem “It’s an epitome of the urban sprawl” and also writes “Houston is well above sea level, so flooding risk from storm surge inundation is low” (Bogost, Ian). Huston's was not prepared for the flood because they did not believe they would get one because of the area they were living but because of urbanization, a flood was possible.

Floods can bring many changes to our environment and health. It can affect our water quality, soil transport, wildlife, habitats, and public health. With floods, there can be combined sewer overflows, debris spread, fertilizers/ pet waste, and oil/chemical contamination. As the river network mentions “Urban flooding can significantly decrease residents’ quality-of-life and impact their personal well-being and health” (Urban Flooding & Equity for Vulnerable Communities Collaborative). All the chemicals, debris, and diseases in the water can spread and create an unhealthy environment to be in. Crops in the area would die and their solid would be moved to a different place due to the water and the destruction of

We have created an urban bowl of water with the ability dig up and mix all of the continents in the area creating a bigger disaster. Instead of making our cities a bowl we could make them into a strainer to allow the water to pass through avoiding a disaster. Converting our cites into a strainer will not be easy, but we could start by making them into a sponge city with green rooftops and permeable concrete. By changing our cities to sponge cites integrating different ways to allow water to return to its natural cycle we can avoid big natural disasters while also providing other benefits. The disasters we have recently had were not expected; in Houston, they were not considered to have flood danger based on where the geography of where they lived but because of urbanization it made those disasters