How "levee wars" are making floods worse
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- Опубликовано: 5 авг 2018
- Explained with a giant, scientific model.
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Correction: At 4:27, we mistakenly wrote "Nijmegan" when it should be spelled "Nijmegen."
In our latest Vox+ProPublica collaboration, we dive into how a structure that’s designed to protect us from floods, may actually be making them worse. High levees come at a high cost, often pushing water into communities that can’t afford the same protection. To demonstrate, we built a giant, scientific model of a river with levees - complete with adorable tiny houses.
Be sure to check out ProPublica’s feature story here for more on America’s flood control problem: www.propublica.org/article/le... with the science explained here: projects.propublica.org/graph...
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Correction: At 4:27 we show the city name as "Nijmegan". It should be "Nijmegen".
Vox I visit Nijmegen a lot because we have a second home their in the forrest :) You can also Google: “Ruimte voor de Waal” (Space for the river “De Waal”). It’s an amazing project for floods. And in the summer an amazing place to swim :D
Vox Thanks for the correction from someone from the area
It's also worth telling that near Nijmegen they recently completed a project to give the river even more space. www.ruimtevoordewaal.nl/en/room-for-the-river-waal
It is actually one of many projects they have executed where they increased exciting areas and created more room for the rivers to overflow. A similar project has been undertaken near Arnhem with the Rijn rive. www.ruimtevoorderivier.nl/project/uiterwaardvergraving-meinerswijk/
We even have a distinct word for the overflow areas, "uiterwaard". nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uiterwaard
Nijmegen isn't in holland north and south holland are states in the Netherlands
Also you called all of the Netherlands holland
The best way to solve your problems.
1. Pushing them somewhere else.
2. Pretends it doesn't exist.
3. ....
Farhan Ihram welcome to the USA!
4. Profit?????
5. Still suffer from the consequences because we're all in this one boat (earth) that's sinking.
6. mental breakdown
Fake floods!
From a Dutch point of view it is really strange to realise that the building of levee's and the height and quality of levee's depends on local or even private initiative. Ofcourse you're going to have 'levee-wars'.
In the Netherlands we have a 'national water-state' (Rijkswaterstaat) which is responsible for all levee's. In times of flooding and/or threats of flooding this Rijkswaterstaat can bypass the government in water-affairs. This authority is more than 800 years old; the state Nederland itself celebrated it's 200 year existance in 2015. Rijkswaterstaat has the power to order local communities to compensate space if they are taking in space that is used for water. So if a city wants to build something in the water with a volume of let's say 3000 cubic meters than they must create space elsewhere for this 3000 cubic meters. If there is no space elsewhere than the whole project will not be executed. I thought this was sort of normal, but apparantly it's not...
We also have places reserved for flooding. So in these areas there is no big industry or other costly entrepeneurs and compagnies. So in case of high water in a river with the threat of flooding they will take down a levee in these reserved areas, so that the pressure on other levee's that protect high valuable compagnies or just cities will become lower.
Sometimes it's good to have a centralized authority that approves or disapproves with wild plans.
Rijkswaterstaat is not the same thing as the Waterschappen (Water Boards). Rijkswaterstaat in its more or less current form was founded in 1848.
But MAH FREEDOM!!
Yeah i agree, i don't know wat this VOX video is saying. It sounds just like they found another research study from america from the 50's which sounds intresting. But they are just proposing some weird hypotheses, instead of providing a solution like other chanels are doing. I thought VOX was critical about their content. Shame
it's America. logic does not exist here
America has Double Capitalism, where the economy follows capitalism, as well as the political system is also capitalism. So who ever can pay the big bucks, to financially lobby, and sway the political system, get what they want. And the poor who can't afford that, loses out. It's just the way it is.
The famous saying is: America has the best democracy that money can buy.
4:03 "We can't just pick up and _move_ major cities."
4:11 *_*Picks up city and moves it_*
That is pretty much what was done in the Netherlands though, so pretty acurate
@@karlosbricks2413 yes giant hands from the sky came and lifted up the houses
Yes, you can. After the 1964 earthquake, the entire city of Valdez, Alaska, was moved six miles west, to higher, more-stable ground.
Actually u can
Its about "will u do it and spend money for it"
Not the whole city, just enough space for a setback
"Build your house on stilts"
- Australia
Christian Ho the Dutch do build house on stilts and have been doing for hundreds of years.
*laughing in Malaysian water village*
Laughs in Venice
Though I am actually Australian
We do that in Galveston in Texas.
Houses on stilts exist pretty much everywhere that can flood
*Global warming:* "Not my problem. It's the next generation's!"
*Flooding:* "Not my problem. It's the other towns'!"
Haha "global warming"'
Benson Hedges Nah it’s universal warning
@@alexwang982 The universe is cooling and the globe is warming.
John Peric
Do you know how much damage 1-2 meters of sea level rise can do?
And we’re not undoing it.
We contribute most of the co2 though.
John Peric
We still emit CO2
CO2 causes warming.
We should stop emitting co2
And clean it up, as you said.
"Don't build near rivers" - Holland
Kevin Slater "waterfront property is valuable" -every American developer
'Too bad' - Holland
ruclips.net/video/XrYWVJKjvRU/видео.html
Specter Knight ‘without compensation’ watch the video again.
@Specter Knight It is not stated explicitly that they were compensated but judging from the fact that they have bought land from their neighbours and have built a house on it, they've ben compensated decently. You find me where it says they were not compensated at all. I've gone looking and found an article which outlines the entire process spanning three decades and notes how all owners of the 40 homes affected were compensated and all are now satisfied, despite difficulties previously.
It is understandable that they might not have wanted to abandon their home and build a new home on neighbouring land, but they would not be the only people to suffer the consequences of their home's location. If their home was allowed to stand, many more homes could flood that now won't. If they fully accepted the consequences, they couldn afford to live there.
"we'll build near rivers anyways" - immigrants from European countries that know better
It's interesting that Mark Twain wrote about this problem in "Life on the Mississippi" almost a century and a half ago.
Mark Twain is a legend and has best quotes..
Me a Dutch person seeing this while our entire country is made of levees. I live next to a levee .
Your "land" are pretty much ocean with lots of levee
@Kevin Lee It would not surprise me that some Dutch people did that.
@Kevin Lee if you do some serious mental gymnastics then yes.but by that logic the dutch cause every flood in the world
You are leveeland
@Kevin Lee Mathematics 6th grade: Volume. The Netherlands displaces a lot of water through its levees. Take this volume and divide it by the surface area of the world's oceans. Solution: < 1mm.
This, like many other problems in the US, is a problem of extreme localism and the ridiculous ideas that local governments with limited budgets can solve problems of state or countrywide significance.
IE B ^^^
This
But ya'll get mad when the government becomes big, can't win right?
TheRealNoodles
That's why you regulate it like what Australia, NZ, and some Scandinavian countries are doing.
Jesus, it's not black and white, mate.
TheRealNoodles who’s y’all?
TheRealNoodles I don't mind big government. So, who's y'all?
1:02 Coach "we still got practice."
I go to that school. Can confirm, they still had practice in the gym.
Here is novel idea. Don’t build in the flood plain.
Sometimes you don't have a choice, ask the Dutch.
What are we gonna do, take a buncha dirt and make hills?
@@yespirit8092 Well... the Dutch made land with it.
Brozius they had the money to do it correctly.. don’t be poor and go build a cardboard home on a riverbank
That's not how the Free Market of Capitalism works
Down here in El Paso, TX., we have setback levees in some areas of the Rio Grande river. The space between the river and the levee was made into park areas with bike riding lanes and other stuff that actually makes for a great place to hang out. Poseidon reclaims his territory from time to time but he's usually pretty chill with us. 🇺🇸🏞🇲🇽
Specops915 same with Dallas and the Trinity river :)
Never before I read such awesome term for flooding
As a spanish speaker reading "rio grande river" was pretty funny
We have the same thing by the Benbrook dam, So when the lake over floods nothing important is destroyed.
☀Rio Bosque Park near Socorro👍
In the Netherlands we have summer and winter levees. Behind the summer levees often cows and sheep are held, which move away during winter, when the risk of flooding is often the highest. Giving space to the river if it floods.
Notmy Realname yeah, it's sad that the American people doesn't care for the vulnerable in general.
@@notmyrealname7634
It's not do-able on the municipal level. But the federal government has the resources to make it happen.
Well, american aint going to succeed in every ascept. Corruption exists and our healthcare sucks even worse than any of this levee crap.
21st century Americans : "building levees right on river banks is a bad idea"
10th century Dutch : " oh gee, really?"
go on google maps and look at valley park. The levee is farther back than even the example photo from the netherlands. I don't get why vice used them as an example for "bad" levee construction.
Town 1: [builds levee]
Town 2: Hey, I’m flooding because you are building your levee higher!
Town 1: [builds higher levee]
i mean. imagine building your sand castle on the lowtide area all the time
I'm a proud Dutch guy, we've been fighting the water for hundreds of years. Our levees are working like a charm because they don't _compete_ with each other, but _work together_ so it's one giant defence system. I think the American love for competition (the pillar for capitalism) is the problem here. Take water defence as serious as military defence and cooperate.
texan here i've been shooting storms to scare them away for 100 years now
Netherlands coastline is 1,914 km long, while the US coastline is 19,924 km long.
Americans don't like to work with each other. That's why poverty is high here and education and Healthcare extremely expensive.
@@pankourlaut America has almost 25x their GDP and 10x their coast line. I think we have the money
@@Joesolo13 So one border wall in the south and two levees on both coasts?
It's the American way, focus on your own at the expense of others.
in the future: hahaha neighbor town my levee is 200 meters higher than yours
Sadly true...
More like a default for human beings.
azkanify There are cultures of community-centered thinking.
@@azkanify Nah in Germany we aren't like that and our government always focuses on social balance and also accounts for animals and nature
4:04 “We can’t just pick up and move major cities.”
_Jakarta has left the chat._
_Indonesia has entered the chat._
Jakarta isn't being moved, it's just the government abandoning the population, what else is new
This isn't about major cities... this is about small towns where one side of the river has the money to dump all the excess water into the poorer side. Because it's inconvenient to have 10 cm of water in your streets, so why not have your neighbours experience 50 cm instead!
SeedlingNL This a major issue around the world. Here in the US, the Mississippi floods regularly every year, but we humans have built towns right on its banks and in the flood ways, where the water is supposed to go. So the wealthy towns build locks and levees to protect themselves and the poorer ones flood even worse. It does not help that the Mississippi River shifts it’s course so quickly that you can see changes year by year on less than human timescales.
Ummm where is jakarta going tho? And why is it moving?
Jakarta aint moving i live there
The capital is getting moved to kalimantan
Water displacement - hardly rocket science is it?
*laughs in Dutch*
Huehue
G E K O L O N I S E E R D
heej heej heej
Dijk dijk dijk dijk
Not so long
Civil Engineer here, this also applies to highways. When we build them we can't just raise them super high so they won't flood, because it can create a "levee" of sorts that will end up destroying towns beside it during the next major rain event.
That's for sure. Any road or unnatural change in the land can affect runoff in unintended ways even when creeks and rivers are taken into account.
Drainage engineer here, while culverts and storage facilities help - they’re not perfect. We do the best we can in order to not increase flows into parcels
How about lowering the river bed? Is it too expensive?
That wouldn't be something for cities and towns to pay, of course, but whole states.
allluckyseven That wouldn't do much since a lot of water is stored in the water table (sea level, but for ground water) underground. A river exists because the land there dips under the water table
Or build the highways 30 feet underground in the ubran areas like they did in Southeast Michigan.
Had a major flooding and all the water filled up into the highway creating an artificial river until it finally drained out a days later.
Needed new sewer pumping stations though, since some were over 50 years old anyways.
Vox: "Can't just pick up and move cities"
Patrick Star: Hold my beer.
I was looking for this comment
terrab1ter4 it would be better if you said. Hold my rock
I live in a river town on United States' east coast. The town was founded in the 1600s and was populated by the Lenni Lenape prior to the arrival of Europeans. Some of the buildings near the water are rather old, (at least by American standards). There is a small section of town that is prone to flooding, but mostly the wetlands have protected the developed areas.
Within the past year, this town has allowed for the destruction of hundreds of acres of wetlands, for the creation of a huge car parking lot and for a pipeline. The township is also in the process of taking a once natural park and adding "historical houses" and a paved walking path. They also have plans to develop an island offshore. So far the only noticeable effect is that the Canadian Geese that used these previously undeveloped areas are now very present on residential lots.
The township is short-sighted and is only seeing the short-term increased property and income tax revenue from this development. I fear the long-term effects of their current actions - to the wildlife, as well as the potential effects on the human population in this town and in the more economically-challenged towns downstream.
It seems to me the same type of thinking that is occurring in this town, is likely what is happening in the towns along the Mississippi River. Everyone wants their piece of the ever-expanding "American Dream" without regard for the consequences and potential harms outside their own immediate self-interest.
Just hire Dutch people. Yall Americans just push your problems away instead of solving them.
Beter ja.
Noice The Jetski Rust even if they did, the United States are too big and the people too divided to pull off what the Dutch did here.
Meneer Bert i think they will come up with a better plan than the americans do
Bjorn Bakker for sure the Dutch will, but the US isn't ready to implement those.
Noice The Jetski Rust has a
In the Netherlands the water channels/dams/etc is maintained and constructed bye the state. And it works very well.
Less government isn't always beter America :)
Amen from Germany!
I thought America is federal state not unitary. Means more government
Richard Jorissen stop, you’re giving the conservatives over here heart attacks and pre-mature balding.
Our governments maintain the levees here as well, that's not the issue. The issue is that the "government" which maintains and builds this stuff is the local government or the state government, not the federal government. We have a longstanding problem in America of trying to decide what rights are guaranteed to the states and what rights are guaranteed to the federal government in Washington DC -- our constitution didn't really do a good job of figuring it out back in the 18th century. So most likely, if the federal government tried to impose restrictions on levee construction, you would have massive amounts of people lobbying against it, claiming that it's their "state right" to construct whatever levee they so choose. A lot of people don't like Washington DC (which is, in many places, thousands of miles away) interfering in their local issues. A lot of American politics comes down to trying to balance a very individualist culture with a political system that ties together 50 small proto-countries with varying cultures into a federation.
OW Get your logical reasoning out of here!
I'm European. I can't believe how ridiculous are US problems. Don't build on flooding planes in first place. All problem solved. Or at least invest in water infrastructure.
Well, honestly, as swiss, I can assure you, this problem is not yet completely solved in Europe. Yes, we do have some change in this area to "free the rivers", but it is by far not done yet.
Also in Europe we canalized too many rivers, increasing this exact problem. We also need to give the rivers space and eventual floodplanes back.
In my current house search, I check for nearby rivers. If there is one, I check the terrain and flood plain data. If there's any chance of a flood, I look elsewhere.
I suppose one could buy a barge, drag it upriver, and onto your riverside land. Drive some deep piles to keep it from floating away, and build your house on it.
No offense but do you realize how large the US is, you can’t compare Europe to the US, the US is extremely diverse compared to a single Europeans country and they have an enormous population.
my channel he is comparing all of the us to all of Europe it’s a fair comparison
CauseEU not really European countries have their own governments to sort things out for them all on their own without much interference from others, it’s not like there’s a president of Europe meanwhile the US is the same size of the continent of Europe and it has one president who everyone answers to.
I live in a neighborhood enclosed by two tributaries of the Iguazu river in a valley covered by steep hills,where there are so many ponds and marshlands due to the constant flooding I believe the place used to be a swamp,and there's a dam who discharges on these tributaries.Our city,rather than building levees,dug the river deeper and built water walls alongside it.
The rivers never flooded again.BTW,It rains cats and dogs quite often due to that tiny thicket of wood called Amazon Rainforest pumping hot and wet winds combined with a dry breeze from that cool and confortable white place called Antarctica,making our own "tornado alley".They occur once in a decade or so.
Trump seriously needs to consider banning illegal rain water from coming in to the states
LOL
Maybe build a levee instead of a wall..?
Build a well!
Build a well!
Build a well!
Let drugs in
Taco got his feelings hurt by Trump apparently
Water has to go somewhere right? And if a neighboring town doesn’t have one what do you think is going to happen.
Wealthbuilderz TV yeah,they should have drank it
Thanks guy. But heres the kicker. Both towns have a levee. One makes there's bighe, beyond fed code. Guess who has a functioning levee, that no longer functions?
To where you live.
+Traceur Snow Seems like one town decided to put extra money into not getting their feet wet. Also both levees still technically work, though the lower levee is now the one that is guaranteed to overflow if the waters get too high instead of flooding occurring on both sides.
think you missed the point of the video. if you want to control a river flooding most efficiently, you have to work together along the river to levee in balance. otherwise it's an arms race where only the richest towns escape flooding.
but I forgot that americans don't like socialism
Towns along the mission river: WE HAVE TOO MUCH WATER
California: what will you pay in cash or water?
it's common knowledge that law enforcement has to watch for the good citizens on one side of a river to keep them from dynamiting the levee on the other side. This has been true for years.
Two things: I live in the Netherlands, the majority of it is below sea level and we have hardly any serious floods. The only floods nowadays are because of the sewer system not being able to handle a lot of rain in one go. But rivers never overflow anymore. Second thing... the music on the background is a bit too loud.
The way Netherlands works is a thing of wonder. Say a big model of it once. All these gates opening and closing twice a day. All this costs quite a lot of money, but if anyone but the Dutch were in charge, 26 of the Netherlands would be under the sea, and a lot of the rest would be flooding all the time. Amazing stuff, but not rocket science or music theory.
I'm also Dutch, you got to keep in mind that that the Netherlands is a very tiny country. It's relatively easy to coordinate this on a small scale, not so much on the scale of the US.
@@Martin-di9pp If anything, it's probably harder in the Netherlands than in the US. You've got far more people with far more interests in a tiny area and no room to do anything without steppimg on at least a dozen toes. A state like Missouri has about a third of the population and over four times the area. Now there you can actually accomplish something and if anyone were affected you can give them double what they had somewhere else and you'd still have resources to spare.
To be fair, why the hell haven't we realized that problems with the hybrid wastewater/sewer systems have, and how we should stop using them?
Classic game theory states that each town will try to build the largest levee to protect themselves.
if they could afford it
Two cutthroat competing towns with no central oversight yes.
I'm from The Netherlands where they used the example from, and to me it's baffling to have two towns compete in such a fashion. It's like a silent war in your own country. But yeah, Americans don't like regulation, so enjoy your "free market" floods. It's a race to the bottom.
Game theory is about rationale. Building higher and higher indefinitely is irrational.
Michael Jay - Value Investing
Eh, not in Repeated Games.
Game theory is about internal rational actors this doesn't mean the end result is always rational. This is the leading principle between the prisoners dilemma. Application of game theory can end up with irrational results.
This is an excellent video. Clear explanation, good use of a model, great job overall!
Flooding used to be a problem in my hometown of Bridgend in Wales, but in the 50s they constructed a flood defense system that is still pretty effective to today. The idea behind it was for high, narrow channels along the river in towns to carry floodwater through towns as fast as possible using levees, and then have dedicated floodplains further downstream. Here, there are lots of low, flat parks that are designed to overflow and hold floodwaters at times of floods and it's worked really well. I think people forget that sometimes flooding is always going to happen, and you need to just accept that, but control it in a way that suits the community.
We have tons of levees here in germany (on the river elbe for example) and they're all a good distance away from the actual river.
what a smart idea! that nobody came up with this earlier..
greetings from the Netherlands.
I'm sure they did, but America is very strongly into the "every man for himself" mentality, which they apply not just to men but to businesses, cities, states and even at the federal level (think things like the housing crash, climate change denial, etc where the US basically says "our short term gain is more important than the entire rest of the world.")
Since levees are mostly regulated by city/county/whatever local government, each city just builds their levee with absolutely no shits given whether it negatively impacts other cities either up or downstream.
Radical Theories People who build houses buy land.
It's like healthcare, the US is horrible at incorporating any idea that would help people.
Stick to your shitty cars and garbage tech / electronics you export. We don't need your useless comments here.
I actually live in Eureka, missouri. We flood pretty regularly. We have “flood days” and they’re honestly treated the same as snow days at EHS. Despite the Levee in valley park, they flood too. I have aunts and uncles in that area and they’ve had to evacuate in both the floods mentioned. I live on a hill, so our home wasn’t flooded, but many of my classmates weren’t as lucky. I’m glad someone is bringing awareness to the issue in our little town!
When watching this all I could hear is “when the levee breaks”
Oh so that’s what a levee is I was wondering what he was singing in American pie
The Amazing Jack hahahahahahah
LOL after all these years..
Levy not Levee different
The Amazing Jack it was also a bar where he used to go to
A lot of myths have been created through American Pie, in no small part because McLean refused to confirm or deny anything. There apparently is no evidence that a bar called the "Levee" existed in the area. One claim is that the Levee became the Beechmont, but it was confirmed the Beechmont never changed its name. Another claim is that McLean was really talking about the Barge, which was a bar at a levee. Of course there have been plenty of other stories as well.
Trump also wants a tall levee with Mexico.
Now see, you aren't wrong, it would solve the problem... but not in the way you may think. **flashforward to news stories around the world reciting how America blew itself up by stepping into the minefields to attempt to prove why that particular instance of border wallvee was the world's best for keeping out refugees** @vin 950
@@johnperic6860 they are not coming for jobs. They are coming for benefits - benefits they will never pay for. US is falling apart because funds are mismanaged, LA and SF are plagued by homelessness and yet LA county alone wastes 20$ BILLION per year on illegals. Imagine how prosperous US could've been if we spent that money on what we really need?
I suddenly have a strong desire to play cities skylines.
As someone from Missouri the two pictures shown early in the video are in Fenton right next to Valley Park. Not Eureka.
I’d love for someone to tell me how regulation isn’t the solution to this, that “the free market” will solve this on its own.
if a town is too poor to invest in a levee, market forces have dictated that it shouldnt exist and the residents should drown. sorry, that's the free market's decision and it's unimpeachable, dont get triggered /s
Nick C +
silentrocker33 that's kinda dramatic. I think the residents of that poor community with a shitty levee would naturally move to the other town with better economy, looking for better jobs and higher quality of live
The free market is excellent at finding the most economical way to do a thing that we have properly set it to do. It is not any good at deciding what we should want it to do in the first place; this is what ethics, culture, and philosophy are for. People who don't understand what markets are good for, blaming markets for their "failures" - ignorance on this scale disgusts me. Might as well criticize a car and not the driver for steering it into a wall.
thousands of dollars get wasted, entire towns get destroyed, land is unusable and people loose their homes who can't afford such devastation
gg pure capitalism - making it worse but for the richest and therefore making it worse for everyone in the long run instead of sloving/preventing the problem in the first place
This is another example of America refusing to look at other countries for help, but wanting to stubbornly do it their own 'free' (ie unregulated) way. The Netherlands is arguably one of the most flooding prone and wet countries on earth, and definitely the one with the most water engineering expertise, so many other European countries and Asian countries 1) copy what the Netherlands do, 2) ask them for plans of their infrastructure, which we happily share, and 3) even ask Dutch companies for help, which we're specialised in, so we also readily do. But not America. And this goes for other problems too, and not even infrastructure.
So often I hear of something being a problem in the US, or it being done in such an old fashioned way, and I think 'wait, didn't humanity already solve this? Doesn't the Netherlands/Germany/Singapore/whatever country provide a perfect example of a solution?'.
In European debates about plans to tackle problems, you will almost always hear parliamentarians compare their solution to another country, or cite other countries to show why something *doesn't* work, why is the US refusing to do this so often? Cooperation is alsof always best.
In Dutch we even have a saying, beter goed gekopieerd dan slecht bedacht, meaning 'you better copy something well, than make it up yourself badly'.
Toon Holman give the situation time, the Netherlands area was populated during the Roman empire. Many generations of knowledge has been passed down on how to survive in the flood prone area. U.S main land has been HEAVILY populated for maybe 200 years so we don't fully understand how our lands flood or the best way to rout the water 500 to 600 miles. These issues will be resolved with time and i'm sure within the next 50 years. We're a very large country with a ton of people so yessss it'll take time.
Alex Lavender I can understand you saying the US needs more time, but your argument makes no sense. The Netherlands has only been properly fighting the water on such a scale for about a hundred years, and that still doesn't excuse the US from refusing to take a hint from other developed nations. Other places, like for example Dubai, which is very young by comparison, have used shared international knowledge forever.
Toon Holman Flooding is the problem of State Governments, and sometimes even City Governments. I don’t know if states would be allowed to reach out to European countries for help.
Generic snacks
That, to me, just goes to show that America is so preoccupied with the glorious old system the founding fathers created and the states' rights cause that they forget everything about common sense.
And even if they are, they can still copy what they see works...
Toon Holman Toon Holman hey I kinda don't agree with this point completely but I do understand where you coming from, some of your facts are wrong, while the Netherlands have been building leevees since the 1850's, they were the same as the US, after WW2 when Netherlands got invaded by Germany, a huge hurricane hit, in 1953 and caused major dmg to Netherlands as a whole. Then huge dmg lead to constructions such as the north sea dam and more advanced Leevees, while most leevees in the us were built around the around 60's and 70's most people didn't try the Netherlands way yet, since there hasn't been a major disaster but most nations did acknowledge their efficiency on paper, but this Leevee built in 90's was provided by the state government, key word STATE. The us government only fault here was the regulation, but the state is more accountable, and if the EU parliament part, does come here to the US it wouldn't really work, the EU is a place with many different cultures and all mostly handled different problems, while in the US you can make the argument that each culture is very different, we all handled the same nation wide problem. Of course I do feel the US is too stubborn in how it handles things when other nations do it better, but it mostly due to lobbyists and the terrible election plan we currently have
4:22 that is normal where I live! I live in the Netherlands and it really common. We call levees ‘dijken’. You can find them everywhere in Noord-Holland. Dijken surround polders. (Dry pumped parts of sea). Some of the polders are over 400 years old!
Tis in heel Nederland, niet alleen Noord-Holland
@@yaralaterveer ik heb het over polders
they already use set-back levees here in japan. the land between is still used, mostly for sports fields and recreation areas with no permanent structures. when the river floods, it has a lot of additional space to flood into, which means the height and speed of the river is kept lower than if the levee was at the water's edge, and after the flood the areas that were flooded are easily fixed up. grassed areas are usually fine and dirt or gravel areas get graded back into a usable state.
Just call in the Dutch, the majority of the country is underwater, the province Flevoland used to be completely underwater but they redirected water, and their dijks protect them from flooding. Im sure they’re more than qualified
Edit: Lol Vox, I hope you know that Holland and The Netherlands are different. Holland refers to two provinces (Noord and Zuid) on the western side of the country, Nijmegen is in the province Gelderland.
Joey Davis Overijssel? Have you looked at a map lately? Nijmegen is well south of the IJssel, old, new and Hollandsch, so definitely not "over".
In English, Holland and The Netherlands are interchangeable. I googled it just to be sure I wasn't crazy, but yup, you can use either in English, but some Dutch don't like it when you do.
Quintinohthree my bad, i was thinking of Nijverdal. Nijmegen is Gelderland.
Andrew Watts That's glossing over a whole lot of context. Using "Holland" to mean "the Netherlands" is exactly analogous to using "England" to mean "the United Kindom". It's something people do and by that virtue an accepted part of the language, yet at the same time it is a pars pro toto that incorrectly identifies the country as just one part of it. It is at the same time accepted and incorrect.
I was thinking about it a little bit ago and I personally use The Netherlands consistently (like as near to 100% as makes no difference) but receptively I accept Holland as a referent. There has to be a reason behind the usage of Holland as a synecdoche / pars pro toto. Like, Holland was the home of the major ports of what became the Netherlands back when the Dutch were one of the nautical powers, so by virtue of ships from Holland (especially Rotterdam) being the point of contact and most politically powerful region it became the referent. There are a number of countries whose exposure would have come that way whose official names to this day are derived from Holland, e.g. Japanese オランダ (oranda). From what I can tell, the push to stop the usage is relatively recent (like post WWII) and only really heated up about a decade ago when, e.g. the legislature asked that Dutch passports to be changed to use a translation of Kingdom of Netherlands rather than Kingdom of Holland for any EU language where such a translation exists, even if Kingdom of Holland is the notional name in that language.
"We will build a HUGE levee. Trust me." - Trump
Thanks Vox for taking 7 minutes to tell me places with lower levees flood before places with higher levees.
Mike D Yes but it obviously took longer than 7 minutes to create this video.
I live in Wildwood, Missouri, and grew up on the Meramac River and at the time of the 2015 flood, I went to Lafayette High School, and I volunteered at the Equine Assisted Therapy in the floodplain. I was one of the people that helped rebuild the Therapy Center after the flood. It was nuts, the High School had to get new gym floors, and the place was an absolute mess. My church set up a disaster relief center in the church basement. In 2017, when my brother was going to Eureka High School, he tried to bring the family canoe down to canoe over the high school parking lot for fun. Sadly, the national guard stopped him. In other words, its really cool to see Vox reporting in an issue near and dear to my heart. I have lots of memories, mostly good actually, of the Meramac river, and even the floods. these kinds of things have a way of bringing the community together.
Just levee them alone.
Austin Natan noice mate
👌
To add info:
In Veneto (a region of Italy that suffer this problem) we have plenty of those setback levees and the terrain is limited to crop growing and other primary activities. Sometimes there are even houses, but still depends by risk if those can be built.
During summer, in Veneto there is a lot of rain, because of a phenomenon called Stau. So, in order to prevent a major number of floods, the region financed levees. In fact those works, but at a high cost and still fail in a lot of cases.
Nowadays there is a better approach, using setback levees. And looking at stats, seems like damages to town and cities literally won't happen anymore
Ar59 sono troppo impegnati a ripagare il debito delle guerre
As some one who lives 20 minutes from eureka I love seeing stories like this
"But not common in the US", something you hear all the time. Everywhere else where there is consideration for others, it's not common in the US.
Selfishness is the American way
America is the New World but you don't have to reinvent a wheel there everytime, you know?
Just call in the Dutch!!!
Honestly, I am not sure what anyone was expecting. It's the US Government. Of course they were going to wind up ignoring any & all advise they'd get. It's kind of a running theme in this country. lol @@ArmouredSP
@@ArmouredSP After Hurricane Betsy (1965), the Dutch told them, "We know how to build the best levees in the world...but it'll cost you." New Orleans ignored the Dutch, and built new levees that weren't all that good. (They wanted to spend money on the Superdome.) They gambled that just-good-enough would get by. They lost.
we may be able to fix their stuff, but we can't fix they way they think ! like make their cities pedestrian+bicycle-friendly; less cars more green !
One of the statements made is patently false. The Army Corps of Engineers failed to monitor levee construction and the Valley Park Levee was built nearly 10 feet higher than it should have been. I live in St. Louis and it was widely recognized the ACoE didn't do their job correctly.
I live in a flood prone area called Houston, Texas.
We know that very well.
It's actually called Nijmegen, not Nijmegan. And this approach has been implemented also a lot in Germany which follows the natural flow of the rivers. It really saved us a lot of problems here
how so fast
Bastiaan Franssen uhh you posted this before the video released wüt
Just used the link from prorepublica that led to the website that had this RUclips video as a header. I don't know why....(trying really hard to cover up the fact I am a time traveler)
I am a Eureka Missouri resident and this is the kind of stuff we love to see! Thank you Vox for making such a great video!
Cameron Grey Warner AYYYY ME TOO GO WILDCATS
In Melbourne they just built an overflow section for the Yarra river. Haven’t had bad floods for years and apparently it used be a huge problem.
Informative...thanks for posting!
It's Nijmegen. Not 'Nijmegan'. (Edit: Vox corrected it)
Just hire the Dutch, we will help you with all your flooding problems.
You'll probably get us a extra state or two while you're at it
Don't trust him, we got them to reclaim an island on the Thames in the UK and now its just filled with drug addicts!
We did get some nice farmland nearby though too. I guess its a hit and a miss.
@@Reddsoldier Hé, you win some, you lose some. You want land, we gave you land so no complaining. Besides at least you know where your drug addicts are now, so I would say: "job well done."
beautifully presented and narrated!!
Professional and original content. Very informative
turn down the background music level yo
JogBird preach yo!!
It's fine what r u talking about?
Rob Spagrenetti I have autism and you are correct I'm hearing them at the same volume
Rob Spagrenetti Maybe the music is just irritating him why does he have to have autism just because it’s bothering him lmao it’s just his preference
JogBird dont worry, subtitle would still helpful
Waterfront property is very valuable. People care about the property value and ignore risks of flooding, probably because they assume insurance will cover it. This prevents wetlands and forces people to build closer to rivers. Greed at the sake of those less fortunate.
This, plus the US government encourages this by offering subsdized flood insurance to high risk areas. The US government should get out of the flood insurance business.
@@tylersmith4265 seriously. This is one case where the market is absolutely great at self regulation. Insurance companies hate risk and the only people with property in high risk areas would have money to burn.
It seems pretty much everything in the US is broken
Everything everywhere is broken.
all things that have existed or will ever exist is broken
@@badlydrawncars6460 agreed
Thnqu soo much for clearing the concept in detail.
A more individualistic US will continue to have these problems until they stop telling others to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and realize it's better to work together.
yeah, that's what Stalin and Lenin said............
@@pyrusrex2882 you sound like a snowflake lol
@@johnperic6860 you are right as well
COMMUNISM IS THE ANSWER! INDIVIDUALISM BE DAMNED
@@alexs858 So working together is communism now? Damn that Fox News propaganda machine is working so great that you could probably convince people that not jumping from bridges is communism and have a wave of suicide throuhout the US.
At this point , what do you guys don't consider communism : NASA? Communist since it's hundreds of people working together and paid by the government. US Army ? The same. Charities? What? People giving money and time to help the destitutes? Sounds like communsim to me...
The main problem here is that levees are apparently a local affair. Water affairs should at least be arranged on state level, or even on federal level, to prevent the possibility of these 'levee wars'. In the Netherlands we have our own governmental layer known as the 'Waterschappen' (Water Authority comes the closest, although it doesn't translate well). They are responsible for everything water related on a regional level, while the larger rivers and sea related issues are a national affair, under the ministry of infrastructure. Maybe something other governments could learn from
Luuk Voncken that's not really the American way though. In America, it's generally believed that the locals know the area best, and would prefer to keep bigger government out of things (also partly why people are wanting the US to pull out of the UN) which is why this happens, the local government wants to keep their own area dry at any cost, but surrounding areas can't afford it, so they get the short end of the stick really.
@@cpufreak101 as a Dutchman I know that's the American way, but it does sound odd. In the end, that approach is not only less efficient, it's also more expensive. A larger government entity is able to coordinate the constructions of river protections in such a way that they work to each others advantages. Now the local governments are just working against each other.
@@vinno97 pretty much
Me: "Yes, of course, water has to go somewhere ok video done 30s in", me: "oooooeh, scale model, i'ma watch"
I went from "Yay! Eureka that's my home town!!" to "yeah, the levee issue sucks." Thanks for the coverage, the lack of future planning hurts any lever system.
Got it never move to Missouri
Dont build your house right next to large river that regularly floods.
Earthbjorn Nahkaimurrao The Dutch disagree.
The Dutch learn
GREENLALI
The most logical thing to do is to build a house inland rather than close to the bank of any river or on the coast. You can stay away from Missouri all you want but you'll get the same issue in Houston, Illinois or Louisiana.
Earthbjorn Nahkaimurrao As someone who lives directly next Valley Park, MO I can agree. In Fenton where my parents house is the flooding was devastating. So many businesses and houses were destroyed in each of the past few floods but it's not that simple. These communities have been here for a long time and it's hard to just get up and move elsewhere
Nijmegen, with an E, is in The Netherlands, not Holland.
But they are the same place...?
CopyRightedSnake - Saying the Netherlands and Holland are the same place is like saying the USA and Texas are the same place.
Roxor128 - er...that distinction doesn't sound odd to me; the U.S. and Texas actually are the same place in the context of a city or location within Texas. For instance, to say that Houston is a city in the U.S. sounds normal.
my neighbour town was/is literally build next to the river and had therefore no space to build levees they thought of an alternative by building huge and a lot of underground water tanks, so every time when the river level rises dangerously close to the limit one or more of this tanks get opens and then again empty in the more drying time periods
if that is really an alternative though i dont know since i believe that building a levee is cheaper than digging huge holes but at least every town around the river benefits from it which as an example of my hometown and alot of others, since that project was funded not only from one town but a lot of them like mention before every one wins in the end of the day by it
what a BS idea! the reservoir would be bigger than your city.
The fact that the levee makes the water flow faster downstream means that you can accommodate several orders of magnitude more water per dollar by building a higher levee.
Higher river*faster river =more volume
Dallas, TX built setback levees in the 1930's, and they have been expanding the system ever since. The Trinity river looks like little more than a ditch for much of the year, but when it floods, it resembles the Mississippi. The levees have been very effective for the city.
Why not do what we do in the UK and dredge the river? It increases the capacity of the river while simultaneously providing building material that can be sold or used in another project.
Angus Irwin cause that's too expensive, would be a large disruption to shipping, and for the length of the Mississippi, would require cooperation between so many local governments that I don't see it feasably working out
Dredging 2300 miles of river is a little difficult and expensive.
What do you mean by cities can't afford? How are the budgets distributed in the US? Can anyone explain please?
It probably comes down to the land value. Take Detroit and compare it to New York (Two extremes - I know they aren't next to each other but let's assume they are). New York is relatively wealthy and they can afford to invest much more for flood defences since they have more to protect and the land value is worth $1.74 trillion, which would be devastating to the economy if it got ruined. Detroit is much poorer and has less to invest in defences, if any. In this case new York would be dry and Detroit would be flooded since there is less economic influence for putting up defences in Detroit. If I missed anything or completely got the wrong end of the stick please someone say since I'm not very experienced in geography.
Bradley Irving but shouldn't the government insure safety irrespective of the wealth? Even if they are poorer doesn't the federal or state government give them required budget for such construction?
Subodh Khanal I assume they install them with the interest of protecting assets rather than peoples' safety. Plus it is easier to protect cities than more sparcely populated rural areas which would cost a fortune to install hard engineering strategies like man made levees - instead soft engineering tends to be used like managed retreat (aka doing nothing) and reimbursing the cost of damage because it is cheaper. Plus natural levees may be formed over time due to the managed retreat.
the protection isn't provided by the federal government. It's something which local governments have to acquire themselves
In an attempt to summarize, state and federal governments never give enough money to towns and cities, so the city often has to cover it's own expenses, the richer the city, the better things they can afford (such as public transit, extra community programs, etc) while poorer cities have less, as they don't make enough on their own.
Good video. Some minor mistakes: it is called Nijmegen and (Noord and Zuid)-Holland are only 2 of the 12 provinces of The Netherlands.
I keep thinking of the Led Zeppelin music "When The Levee Breaks."
Beware of angry Dutchies: it's Nijmegen, not Nijmegan
the amount of comments I see complaining that they got a city name wrong by one letter
This is why you need federal organization of this kind of infrastructure. Rivers often run through multiple states and the federal government is really the only entity able to organize efforts between them
Ok, we had this problem in my area. After the 1913 flood, they built a nice levee in my town with room for wetlands, but they also made a series of damns on the miami river to gradually let a flood pass instead of all of it rushing down at once.
You misspelled the Dutch city called 'Nijmegen'.
Another example how selfish we are in the US. So much for “United”.
It really surprised me to hear this.
In germany we are not allowed to build something in the flooded area. You need special permits and you need to make a compensation of the same volume. Something like dig a hole.
I dunno if it's a matter of selfish, they're not building levees as a way to flood neighbors. Now you're saying the option is that everyone should get flooded and that's the "fair" thing to do?
@@Mike__B No but you can build them smarter. Just encircle your town an let the water in the forest or on your fields. This helps a lot when yoi want to lower the water level.
@@Mike__B negligence is selfishness.
In the UK over the last few years many areas have suffered from not just river floods but surface water flash floods this has focused efforts on stopping and slowing surface water runoff. This also has the effect of reducing flow into rivers.
I've worked with people from SAFL, and been inside their facility. Great people. Great facility.
Just drink the water🤦♀️😎
just donate it to africa
He's good
*+SchafLP* or California. Or even Flint.
Stop. Building. Cities. So. Close. To. Rivers. Water has to go somewhere.
Mateusz Wojtkiewicz you do know that almost all cities in the world are built on rivers or by the coast because it's necessary for the growth of cities...
Mateusz Wojtkiewicz Do you know anything about cities?
Mateusz Wojtkiewicz rivers provide water, food, etc.etc.
Uh, you do realize a lot of these cities are old, and got their success cause of their proximity to major bodies of water, right?
Huskie
Seriously? Most cities are built at a distance from the river, not on the river bank itself. Look at Florida. They built condos right on the islands surrounding the coast and close to shore, and now everyone cries on a yearly basis because of hurricane and flooding. You need space. Ancient Egyptians knew that it was smart to build farther from the river, but not too far away. They utilized the flooded area every year to build crops.
As someone living RIGHT next to the American River for me, flooding is a HUGE problem
Then why did you move there?
My town was expanding towards the river, until there was extreme rain in 1998. The water rose to 30cm (1 foot) under the levee, then they decided to use that space, originally reserved for houses, as a park, the can flood if needed, similar as in Nijmegen, however, since my town on recently (past 100 years) really started growing, we have more space to dedicate to the water.
Feel like you could've gone more in depth, this is all primary school material in The Netherlands. Also, at 4:29 it should be Nijmegen, not Nijmegan. I love your content, but please make sure you keep factchecking.
the US general public only understands primary school material - just look at their president...
and it's in the Netherlands, not in Germany (as their name correction in the description states)
6:31 I'm confused, The problem passed should be upstream OR downstream?
LagiNaLangAko23 Actually, it should be both. If water can't go anywhere, it'll flood where it can, upstream or downstream.
Both its called a bottle neck.. When water cant pass thru it'll flow backwards.causing floods on both ends
In the Rheine River Valley we have leveys and flood walls but between the leveys and the autobahn flood lands get utilized only when the water reaches the peak capacity of the down river embankments as they can only hold so much water and thereby reduce the peak water height only so much.
They should've conducted this in Houston.
We're literally setting and breaking our own records when it comes to flooding.