Houston's Flood is a Design Problem

[Lindsay Kathleen McManus]

           Ian Bogost, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, argues in this article that the flooding occurring in Houston is due to a design problem. “It’s not because the water comes in. It’s because it is forced to leave again.” Flooding has always been an issue of keeping water out through both avoidance and engineering precaution; however, because floods cause greater property damage and more deaths than tornadoes or hurricanes, their impact must be addressed, especially in highly developed areas, such as cities who feel their influence at a higher degree due to the “pavement of civilization forcing the water to get back out again.”

           Under typical circumstances, rain or snowfall falls and soaks back into the earth, getting absorbed by grass, parks, residential lawns, and other areas where the soil is exposed. However, two factors that inhibit absorption and that are heavily prevalent in large cities include “when large quantities of rain fall occurs in a short period of time and when there are ‘coverings’ over the ground so it cannot even begin soaking up water.” The second factor is exactly what cities do: they transform the land into developed civilization through developing roads, parking lots, sidewalks with asphalt, stone, and other building materials, which resist the natural absorption of water.

            When water hits pavement, runoff is immediately produced. Because this water has to go somewhere, it flows” wherever the grade takes it.” As a result, individuals engineer systems to move water away from its original deposit location, housing it or even reusing it. This process is known as stormwater management, and it is highly undervalued and often overlooked in many major cities. Stormwater management usually involves channeling water away from resistant surfaces and the structures constructed above them. Consequently, cities are built on the assumption that the water that would have been absorbed back into the land they occupy can be instead, transported away as well as are considered within the limits of expected behavior. Nevertheless, when these intervals are surpassed, like the case in Houston, flooding is the result as infrastructure cannot handle the rate nor volume of water.

            Because Houston is gigantic, stretching out over 600 square miles, the city presents a unique challenge to city planners and engineers in charge of stormwater management. Houston is the perfect example to embody urban sprawl characterized by American urban development, where ready land made growth easy at the edges. However, unlike New Orleans, who suffers from storm surge flooding, Houston’s placement, which is situated well above sea level, is threatened instead by rainfall. Bayous provide natural drainage for Houston, and to account for the certainty of extra flooding, Houston has developed drainage channels, sewers, outfalls, on and off road ditches, and detention ponds. These too; however, find themselves often full, and when this occurs, roadways provide overrun. Because it is next to impossible to design for maximal probable flood events, planners instead turn to designing communities such that when they flood, can withstand the harsh effects and support efficient evacuations to keep people safe.

            Some planners argue that impermeable surfaces are themselves the problem as they decrease the surface area enabled to absorb water; thus, reducing development is the best way to manage urban flooding. The issue here is that urban development has yet to slow and does not plan to. Cities have only increased in their level of desirability, spreading outward. Other planners believe it is the federal government’s job to direct development away from flood-prone areas through disincentives of risk insurance and increased regulations. However, there is a group of planners who would like to see a compromise reached between the two previously discussed ideas. These planners claim areas prone to flooding must be managed through redevelopment that combines an increase in natural ground cover, permeable or semi-permeable pavers, and vegetation with urban growth that privileges mixed-use and green space. When possible, recreation lands, conservation lands, dry washes, and other approaches must be sought after in an attempt to counterbalance pavement when possible.

            One professor of city planning at Georgia Tech, Thomas Debo, believes pavement reduction is not the right cure for urban flooding. Although a reduction in impermeable surface and improvements made in water conveyance would assist in the solution, the most important step to take is to reduce the speed of water when it is channelized, so it doesn’t flood other areas, as well as to find new uses for water rather than sending it away. He cites cisterns, which collect, process, and reuse water, as the central remedy for the issue. Debo also notes; however, that there is no magic resolution to the flooding issue, especially due to flooding crises having the tendency to spark initial interest and concern that eventually fades away, unlike something like traffic policy that everyone has something to say about due to its constant influence on everyday life.

            All in all, the toughest part of managing urban flooding is “having to deal with the American insistence that they can and should be able to live, work, and play anywhere.” As a result, we have regions today that should never have developed into cities in the first place. Debo and other critics doubt any moves will be made by the government in regards to city planning and design implementation for flooding; nevertheless, Bogost pleas for the individual to begin considering site-specific design. That is, a homeowner should maybe think twice when installing a new cement patio or driveway.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/why-cities-f...

[Sebastian Ortiz]

Flooding is an issue that concerns many of Americans today. In the recent hurricanes that affected Houston and the southern coast of Texas, Florida and even Puerto Rico. How to manage flooding can be a struggle since, in the article you analyze, is not keeping updated the infrastructure. Cities grow every year, migration and the movement of people will create more development. Sprawl, as an amarían form of urbanization, affects the natural environment that can canalized water by absorption.

City design needs to change in America and become more concentrated, population wise, since it would become a better way in use of land, High rise living can be an option and the creation of more green areas such s parks that will be used as filters for rain water and can prevent some flooding. The management of water needs to be up to date to avoid destruction around property that are need the water facilities. Interesting insight on who water management needs to be to avoid resisters in coastal cities! And very well written response.

[Michelle Garcia Zarate]

One of the many problems of urbanization is that contractors populate natural areas that are not supposed to be inhabited or invaded by human constructions. Because of this, the materials used for infrastructures cannot be mixed with natural resources, and therefore, when there are natural disasters that include floods, these become a headache for engineers and local government given that it is very complicated to contain them.

As stated in your article, stormwater management need to be improved in order to prevent impacts as fatal as those seen recently due to hurricanes that impacted the population. Perhaps, in the first place, Urban planners and engineers should begin to consider not stealing land from nature and not building in areas where it is known that the latter will return to seek its land and try to continue with its "natural" life cycle.
Although engineers have designed cities to withstand natural disasters such as floods caused by rain, these efforts and planning are not sufficient, and apparently, the only way to stop so many casualties is either by slowing down urban development or designing a better urban planning away from flood-prone areas.

[Nathan Lewis]

Unfortunately, this type of problem is likely to get worse in the future. More and more cities sprawl outward. Many of them are along the coast. This creates exaggerated flooding conditions where the water tends to collect in concentrated areas and then is not able to leave via absorption into the ground. We have made our cities into large bath tubs with the amount of concrete used. While it is true that there are options to add absorbable materials, most of them are expensive and require regular upkeep. Most cities find it easier to just pour cement, smooth it to be flat, and not have o worry about it for several years. But this issue truly does matter since cities are only getting bigger and having more people in them. Coastal cities might have to consider changing some of their development practices, so as to avoid high-risk flood areas. 

[Jacob Ryan Shaw]

This seems to be a really huge issue for many large cities in Texas. Especially due to the greatly increased storming and the general lack of it otherwise. The urban planners of these southern coastal cities really need to focus on improving our common defenses against these natural forces. Many cites that were built with the dry heat of Texas in mind actually have counter productive measures in place. The especially hard part is managing the constant state of renovation that Texas is in. Sprawl and road construction is going to affect this as well.

I definitely agree that Americans get in their own way on this issue, and it is the job of the urban designer to plan around that. I really like that there are steps that homeowners can take right now to help the issue.