Hard Engineering

Nota:

• Artificial walls built mainly to protect buildings

1. Protect property from flooding
2. Expensive
3. Unattractive

1. Can store a lot of water
2. Water can be used to generate hydro-electric power
3. Farmland can be lost
4. Expensive
5. Unattractive
6. Lakes behind the dams can be used as amenities.

Nota:

• Involves straigtening and deepening the river and making it smoother

1. Habitats in the beds and river-banks destroyed
2. Expensive
3. Unattractive
4. Enables water to flow more quickly, less chance of flooding

Nota:

• Lakes are created to take extra flood water

1. Expensive to build
2. Can store a lot of water

Nota:

• These take flood water away from the main river

1. Expensive to build
2. Might be difficult to find the necessary land
3. Will make the river less likely to flood

Nota:

• Can be lowered into place to prevent flooding

1. Effective barrier against flooding
2. Expensive

Nota:

• Built on either side of the river's channel; they increase the size of the channel so it can take more water

1. Can move the flood problem further downstream where the channel might be smaller
2. Increase effective size of the channel so the river can take more water

Nota:

• Can be put in place when there is danger of a flood and removed when the danger has passed

1. Can move the flooding problem downstream
2. Expensive to store and transport
3. Eliminates need for permanent walls