Is Increased Flooding in Houston an Effect of Climate Change?

The 100 and 500 year flood rates are statistical estimations. The 100 year flood CAN happen every year.

http://water.usgs.gov/edu/100yearflood.html

 

It does seem houston is wetter, but that is compared to the first half of the 20th century - so it might be related to global warming but it doesn't seem definitive.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-s...rendyear=2016&filter=true&filterType=binomial

Yes, I know that article. It has nothing to do with Houston Flooding. You are quoting an article about Sandy - which was a disaster that was indeed contributed by global warming for multiple reasons.

But trying to spin that as an article about Houston flooding was very deceptive on your part.

 

Natural disasters don't exist, they are a social construct.

 

No the increased flooding is because 47% don't pay income taxes, there are too many abortions, and homosexuals are being allowed to marry. This is clearly punishment from god.

 

Also, one of the biggest problems with flooding on the Upper Gulf Coast is the soil makeup. The black clay "gumbo" does not allow water to soak in, it just runs off (also why groundwater aquifers take so much time to replenish). Out to the West, the Katy Prairie area (which used to be one of North America's largest wetlands, there's more porous dirt there), but yall pretty much concreted over all that, same with the wetlands toward the coast. This is also a huge problem with why foundations shift, or piers and beams get all crookedish.

 

I don't think it's perception. I've lived in Houston 35+ years and have never had an issue until that storm the other day. Whole house flooded out, cars gone. Something's definitely changed.

 

Man, seriously? Very sorry to hear it. Glad you're safe, but damn.

 

Yeah, it was nuts. At 3am, no flooding. By 5 am, a foot of water in the house.

I've never had water near my doorstep before, not even close.

 

Damn, sorry to hear it. Hopefully you were wiser than me and had flood insurance

 

Damn sorry to hear that. Hope everything is ok.

 

Sorry to hear that. Glad you are safe.

 

Thanks. Cleaning up this mess is a total pain in the ass.

Anyway to the subject, certainly the weather seems a lot more erratic these days but when I think about it the thing that has really changed in this area over the last 20 years is all the construction. When I moved out here, Mayde Creek/Cypress/Katy area, there was just a gas station on the intersection outside my subdivision and a lot of wooded area. Now everything seems paved over with an incredible amount of new home and business construction. Granted it was a hell of a rain storm but now that rain has nowhere to go whereas in the past it was soaked up by all the undeveloped land. I imagine we're going to see floods more often now.

 

Yes, definitely. I read some articles yesterday on Weather Channel and CNN that both talked about the paving over of North and West Houston has a lot do with why Houston's floods are worse now.

 

Why are you even trying to debate this at this point? Not everyone (especially media outlets like Bloomberg) is using data to drive their beliefs about global warming.

I still have yet to hear anything from you about which RCP, or where else, you are getting your beliefs about global warming. You seem to have the most outlier of beliefs. Where does that come from?

 

There is data to support that Sandy was indeed strengthened by global warming.

You can pick any of the 4 RCP's in the IPCC report. My views are hardly outliers.

 

That article was printed immediately after tropical storm Sandy had ravaged NYC. What data were Bloomberg going off of? BTW, the 4 RCP's represent four scenarios of "representative concentration pathways". They deal with temperature and climate outcomes based on perceived forcing at certain CO2 concentrations.

 

Climate change might be a factor, but imo it's the last thing we should be focusing on as a local community. For the climate change debate, these flood events are an anecdote in a footnote. For Houston and for what are we going to do about it, we should consider the climate and weather as uncontrollables, maybe with a worsening trend, and focus on how we choose to build the city and our infrastructure for drainage in particular. If we can't figure out how to continuously drain 3 inches of rain per hour, we need to figure out a way to live with it because it's going to keep happening.

 

The problem is the amount of impervious cover in this city coupled with the **** soils that we have. In addition, many of our bayous and creeks are not designed to take in the 100-year event, much less the 500-year event. Just because isolated parts of the City had a 500-year event does not mean that the whole City had a 500-year event. Certain parts were spared, while others were not.

Our drainage infrastructure is outdated in many areas of the City as well, especially much older sides of town. At the end of the day, we are designing our systems based on a calculated flow. This calculated flow is driven by the intensity. Intensity are empirical values that were gathered at certain time frames. As of now, new projects are designed based on empirical data gathered during Allison, but as we all know not every system in this City has been updated, therefore, you have systems that are outdated and were designed on a lesser standard. In addition, you can also have older developments that were not designed to the strict standards of today and they contribute greater runoff to the overall area due to lack of detention or undersized storm systems.

I feel that for the most part, many of our systems did really well in yesterday's storm. Unfortunately you will always have areas that will have problems. In the Meyerland area, Brays Bayou is still undergoing improvements and the channels in those areas are simply not suitable for the amount of runoff the area produces. The City now designs their storm sewer systems to convey the 100-year event within their right of away (combination of street and storm sewer), however, many times you outfall into a channel that is not designed to take in that much water, does you have back water effects (i.e. water gushing out of storm manholes or inlets) and eventually this create so much flooding that structures are affected.

I think the City is tackling this issue, but due to the neglect of not updating the infrastructure, not holding developers to City standards, etc etc, we end up with the amount of flooding that we get every now and then. Now combine this with subsidence of the area, along with our crappy clays that can't absorb enough water, and our vast concrete parking lots, and you just make the problem a whole lot worst.

 

It was a calculated political choice that didn't account for increased weather severity. No one in the 50's and 60's when city had options could see it.

Right now even, the Katy Prairie, upstream from Cypress and Spring Creeks, has a new freeway and plans for up to 500,000 people in the Cypress area. Cover another 10,000 acres with roads and roofs and guess what happens downstream.

The only political solution I see is buying out thousands of homeowners and commercial properties (and those people up stream should do it) and don't freaking drive when it's flooded. Take 24 hours off.

 

Another excellent post to add to ElPigto's above. I'll add the problem of zoning to the list of "what if's?" The absence of zoning, in point of fact, certainly within the Houston city limits. A huge mistake that keeps on giving. And what is it giving? Trouble. With a zoning commission, the city would have had in place a mechanism to address issues like flood control, and could have had it for decades.