Why can’t the US build infrastructure that automatically siphons water from flood zones to the west during flood seasons?
In: 4
The Soviet Union [began a project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal) to reroute some of its arctic rivers to irrigate the arid steppes of Central Asia; you might be interested in reading some of the problems they faced and why they never got it done. While they calculated it as basically feasible, it would’ve taken immense resources (in their case, a lot of nuclear detonations). They also weren’t sure of the environmental impact of moving that much water on a permanent basis, since the water cycle is so important to climate. That meant doing it might cause more harm than good.
In the specific case of flood zones, you have to consider that any system that is good at capturing the floodwater is already going to achieve most of its benefit by stopping the flood. Once you have the levees that can keep the water within the river’s banks, you’d need to invest a huge amount of additional money to move it somewhere else instead of just letting it flow downstream–and you don’t get anything out of it until you actually get it to the West.
Latest Answers