Related topics: climate change · drought · rainfall

First evidence of legendary China flood may rewrite history

Geologists have found the first evidence for China's Great Flood, a 4,000-year-old disaster on the Yellow River that led to birth of the Xia dynasty and modern Chinese civilization, researchers said Thursday.

Mystery of glacial lake floods solved

A long-standing mystery in the study of glaciers was recently —- and serendipitously—solved by a team led by University of Hawai'i at Mānoa astrobiologist and earth scientist Eric Gaidos. Their findings were published ...

Chemists create the brightest-ever fluorescent materials

By formulating positively charged fluorescent dyes into a new class of materials called small-molecule ionic isolation lattices (SMILES), a compound's brilliant glow can be seamlessly transferred to a solid, crystalline state, ...

Magma floods erupt from deeper sources than earlier believed

An international group of geologists has demonstrated with computer simulation that huge magma eruptions can initiate deeper below the Earth's surface than previously believed. Such flood basalt eruptions have caused many ...

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Flood

A flood is an overflow or accumulation of an expanse of water that submerges land. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows or breaks levees, with the result that some of the water escapes its normal boundaries. While the size of a lake or other body of water will vary with seasonal changes in precipitation and snow melt, it is not a significant flood unless such escapes of water endanger land areas used by man like a village, city or other inhabited area.

Floods can also occur in rivers, when the strength of the river is so high it flows out of the river channel, particularly at bends or meanders and causes damage to homes and businesses along such rivers. While flood damage can be virtually eliminated by moving away from rivers and other bodies of water, since time out of mind, people have lived and worked by the water to seek sustenance and capitalize on the gains of cheap and easy travel and commerce by being near water. That humans continue to inhabit areas threatened by flood damage is evidence that the perceived value of living near the water exceeds the cost of repeated periodic flooding.

The word "flood" comes from the Old English flod, a word common to Germanic languages (compare German Flut, Dutch vloed from the same root as is seen in flow, float). The specific term "The Flood," capitalized, usually refers to the great Universal Deluge described in the Bible, in Genesis, and is treated at Deluge.

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