What are some solutions to flooding in the most flood prone areas? Agcenture proposes 12 possible ways you can consider in this blog post. The first category lists how to prevent flooding at home. The last ones recommend for farmers to control flood risks at ranches and crop farms.
Floods cause huge losses in homes, farms and ranches almost every year. This natural calamity destroys human life, property, crops and animal yields. Though there some positive impact on farming like fishing and deposit fertile soil deposits, the risk to vulnerable poor farmers and pastoralists is enormous. As water sweeps their crops and livestock away, it erodes their hope, efforts and resilience for years.
How can you stop flood and storm water from destroying your home or property? While there is no absolute means to stop floods from occurring, the following three Methods help to manage effects of floods destroying your home.
- Disaster preparedness
- Permanent Flood measures
- Erect Temporary flood defense barriers
Disaster management, Rain water harvesting, erecting flood barriers or making a raised flood Proof house.
Temporary flood barriers and shields
Temporary flood barriers are portable and easy to deploy in minutes. They work on water contact as shown in the YouTube video on the best temporary flood barriers for homes. Amazon stocks various anti-flood products. You can compare and Shop them at end of this article. Some need only one emergency personnel to deploy.
The flood barriers for homes in this article are:
- Sandbags
- Flood barrier socks
- Flood blocks
- Door guards
- Water gates
- Water Inflated Property Protector
Flood Disaster Preparedness
Do you live in an area classified as flood prone? One way to reduce it effects on your home is to building you capacity in disaster preparedness and knowledge about floods. You will therefore know when to expect, prepare and respond to flood risks in the best way. Means of preparedness for home owners and authorities include; –
Access and use weather forecasting information to know when floods are likely to occur. Residents in Kenya can access free weather forecasts at no cost using the KAOP weather forecasting App. In case of sporadic rainfall, you can prepare by moving to higher grounds, unclogging drainage, arranging sand bags etc., before floods can occur
Watch out for flood warnings from the disaster management unit or meteorological department and the media. There three types of flood warnings
- Flood watch: Flooding is possible, beware and watch out
- Flood Warning: Flooding of homes, businesses and main roads expected, Act now
- Severe flood warning: Severe flooding expected, danger to life and property, Act now
- All clear: Flood waters are going down, check if its safe to return
The other flood risk preparedness measure is to train your personnel, residents and family members on what to do incase of floods occurring. How to deploy flood barriers and shields in case of floods and evacuation procedure incase of severe flood warning issues.
At policy level, the government and its agencies need to invest in monitoring floods, research, warning, awareness creation and evacuation protocols to minimize negative effects of floods during the heavy rainy season.
Permanent flood measures
The permanent flood measures are ideal for you if you live in a flood prone region with a history of frequent occurrence, The methods you can use are investing in making flood-proof homes and making embankments.
Make a Flood-Proof home
Are you looking for zero damage of floods to your home and property. You can make or buy a flood-resistant house. You can choose an raised house or the floating types. These will allow water to pass under without destroying your furniture and other valuables.
- An Elevated house; built a raised house on strong poles or beams that allow water to pass under the raised platform just like a beach house. Besides, you You can make a raised foundation made using compacted earth or concrete.
- Make an amphibious floating house; your house will rise with rising water floods from its foundations as with water level. Today, There are many innovative amphibious flood proof houses prototypes for low income and high end regions. Examples are the buoyant home in Buckinghamshire along River Thames in UK. Another one in Bangladesh uses empty recycled water bottles. The idea is to go for a cheap solution you can afford given your budget.
Permanent embankments
You will erect permanent barriers to divert water and protect your home, yard, and other property that you choose to contain within your flood barriers. They are constructed and expected to remain in place for many years. You can make them part of your architecture and landscaping designs for safety and beauty.
You can make permanent embankments using concrete, stone walls, compacted earth etc. Others are dykes and embankments, constructing stone walls and laying sandbags The main advantage of making permanent flood barrier is the little to non human intervention needs to deploy, demount and store, as well as needs for training personnel. But they are expensive, take time and are labor intensive to set. This has led to innovation and use of temporary barriers you can deploy in a minute incase of flash floods as discussed below.
