Fires burning brush and forests are natural occurrences. There are even certain trees whose seeds only germinate after a fire. At some point we got it in our heads that all forest fires are bad and we should extinguish every one with extreme prejudice. (I’m looking at you Smokey the Bear.)
After some decades we learned the hard way that this tactic is wildly flawed. Fires require 3 things, oxygen, fuel, and heat. When you never allow ANY fire to burn even in a controlled manner you allow that fuel to build up, and build up, and build up.
What we learned by putting out every single fire is that you are exchanging frequent small fires for infrequent massive, completely uncontrolled, and devastating fires.
There’s nothing to be gained by flooding land, it will not prevent future floods or reduce the size or strength of them.
Controlled flooding gives a place for the water to go when there’s too much. For example I remember reading about dikes along the Mississippi for flood control, but when there was too much water it would flood less inhabited farmland before city areas
There’s nothing to be gained by flooding land, it will not prevent future floods or reduce the size or strength of them.
This is incorrect. Controlled flooding is used to mitigate the risk and effect of floods. This is especially common in the Netherlands, where designated areas - “uiterwaarden” - are periodically flooded as needed. These areas are typically used as pasture or for recreation under normal conditions.
There’s nothing to be gained by flooding land, it will not prevent future floods or reduce the size or veracity of them.
This is not entirely true, though the purpose is not the same as controlled burns. We intentionally (re)flood wetlands we’ve previously dried in order to restore wetland habitats.
Kind of like the fires, though, we learned the hard way that draining all the wetlands is bad, and they’re actually very important features of nature.
In the context of controlled burns, there’s nothing to gain from flooding land temporarily in a similar fashion. However, rebuilding wetlands is actually a great way to prevent floods in other areas.
When a dyke becomes too soaked it might collapse, they will open particular points to take pressure down. I’m not an expert by any means, but that’s my understanding.
Do you mean controlled flooding to prevent natural floods like controlled burns prevent natural fires?
Look to nearby colleges or universities with an agricultural arm. Example, https://snr.unl.edu/academicprograms/prescribed/index.aspx
Why not controlled flooding? Controlled fires are consuming a backlog of available fuel to mitigate the chances of a future uncontrolled fire. A flood wouldn’t be relieving any sort of equivalent pressures, they’re not analogous.
The Sutter Bypass and Yolo Bypass in California are examples of prescribed/controlled flooding infrastructure. When the Sacramento River is about to overflow its banks, the bulk of the flow spreads out into the bypasses, keeping the river level low and flooding agricultural areas rather than urban areas.
