The land around East St. Louis is suffering from chronic flooding. Land around the East St. Louis area that suffered from chronic flooding was purchased in 1996 by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration). FEMA thought these lands to pose to much flooding threats and therefore was unsuitable for habitation. The Mississippi River flooded in 1993 causing major damage to all of the states the river runs through.East St. Louis lies within the Mississippi River flood plain
The view above is one towards East St. Louis during the flood of
1993. A lot of damage was done during that year and lots of revenue
and houses were lost that year. The flood of 1993 in addition to
the many floods from previous years have led East St. Louis for a solution
to alleviate the chronic flooding problems it faces on a yearly basis.
References and Sources
"Prediction and Mitigation of
Flash Floods", 1.26.00
http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS/policy/floods.html
This web site
is devoted to the understanding and handling of flood issues and problems.
Poor soils and un-researched planning have led to issues pertaining to
flooding and perhaps death in certain situations. The main problem
is poor planning has led to people living near and around rivers and streams
that tend to flood
frequently. New technologies
will
lead to better understanding and detection of the problems with flooding.
Weather surveillance radar's are now being implemented into use by agencies.
Better understanding of rainfall studies and on site sensors will lead
to help prevent flash flooding related problems. -IJ
"Management of Florida's Everglades",
1.26.00
http://kabir.umd.edu/Glades/ELM.html
The Institute
for Ecological Economics has developed a study of Florida's Everglades.
Florida's Everglades is a problem area with flooding and water management
in general. The web site follows through on several models and solutions
to issues of water management. The models follow through on the dynamics
of flooding on the landscape. -IJ
"Storm Water Management", 1.26.00
http://www.snyder-associates.com
Snyder
& Associates, Inc. is an engineering and planning firm. Their company
does comprehensive drainage and master plans for a variety of clients.
Their services offered are: storm water management, site grading/runoff
options and complete analysis ranging from master planning for areas exceeding
a thousand acres, including lake/impoundment structures to localized site
plan analysis for on site storm water detention. -IJ
"Flood Plain Management Services
and Coastal Resources Branch"
http://www.usace.arm.mil/inet/functions/cw/cwtpfs
The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers linked the agency of FPMS Flood Plain Management Services
as well as a few others agencies that work on controlling floods and emergency
relief of flood prone areas. Other agencies such as PAS
Planning
Assistance to States Program and NFPC
National Flood Proofing Committee exist and do works with runoff mitigation
and storm water management -IJ
"1998 Flood Damage Reduction"
http://www.usace.arm.mil/inet/functions/cw/cecw/flood98/
The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers works in the field of flood relief as well as developing
technologies to prevent flooding. In 1998 alone they were able
to assess and develop preventative measures that saved the United States
billions of dollars in damages. The web page sites states, provides
statistics and figures that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were able to produce
during the fiscal year of 1998. -IJ
"Stormwater management: Shifting
the present paradigm." Wilding, Duane A.; Clarke Raymond P.; Ballantine
Robert. Public Works, v. 130 no. 8 (July 1999), pp. 54-56.
The writer discusses
changes that need to be made to management practices for storm water runoff.
Much of the money that has so far been expended to
improve the water quality of streams
could be lost as watersheds are increasingly stressed by the expansion
of urban centers into rural and undeveloped areas.
The water quality of receiving streams
is further degraded by a lack of maintenance, a lack of storm water
management practices in urban areas, and the ineffectiveness of the storm
water management practices of the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s.
New, watershed friendly, storm water management practices that mimic
nature are the solution. (Wilson Select Databases)
"Technology aids flood planning, response." Johnson, Julia. American
City & County , v. 114 no. 2 (February 1999), pp. 47.
The author of this article praises the town
of Fort Collins, Colorado which had minimal damage to its town after a
major storm in the area. The city set up drainage and flood
management programs before the storm. In response to that the the
storm had done minimal damage. The article also discusses the use
of technology such as GIS to form a larger database about flood prone
and damaged areas. They are using this technology to the towns flood response
capabilities. -IJ
"Landfill storm water channels use cellular confinement technology."
Sochovka, Rob; Benedict, Nelson; Bodner, Rick. Public Works, v.
130 no. 11 (October 1999), pp. 56.
The construction and closure of the Empire Landfill
in Taylor, Pennsylvania, was designed to protect the facility and surrounding
area from accelerated erosion while accommodating the flows from a 100
year, 24 hour storm. The landfill has double lined cells with a geosynthetic
sandwich of geotextile HDPE liners and stone aggregate on top of a clayey
soil subbase. It also has a complete storm water management system
that features a series of channels with high erosion potential in the diversion
and interceptor channels. (Wilson Select Databases)
Harris, Charles W. and Dines,
Nicholas T. Time-Saver Standards for Landscape Architecture
: Second Edition, McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., New York, 1998, pp.
330-2 to 330-49.
This comprehensive
book is a must for any Landscape Architect. It covers most issues
addressed by the Landscape Architecture profession. Particularly
it devotes an entire section to Storm water Management. The book
takes time to definitively cover the issue of Storm water Management and
then goes into proper solutions and design methods. -IJ
Strom, Steven and Nathan, Kurt.
Site
Engineering for Landscape Architects : Second Edition, Van Nostrand
Reinhold , New York, 1993.
This is
a complete Site Engineering book, it covers topics such as Storm
water Management and Design and Sizing of Storm water. Issues
such as drainage, construction, grading, soil conservation and other Landscape
Architecture topics are covered in this book. More importantly it
prescribes planning solutions as to the design of areas with proper drainage.
-IJ
Herricks, Edwin E. and Jenkins,
Jackie R., Storm water runoff and Receiving Systems Impact Monitoring
and Assessment, CRC Lewis Publishers,
Boca Raton, 1995.
The primary
focus of storm water and urban runoff research during the past twenty five
years has been on the physical description and the
chemical quality assessment of runoff
events and the design and implementation of the best management practices
to control these events. There
is a definite need for more effective
integration of receiving system issues in the management and regulation
of storm water runoff.
This new book successfully brings
together a diverse group of environmental specialists to address the issues
surrounding the assessment,
management, and control of storm
water, and more specifically urban runoff, from a receiving system perspective.
The book's emphasis on the
receiving system is timely, coming
during a period when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is placing
increasing emphasis on wet weather
conditions through a new permit
program for storm water runoff and a policy on combined sewer overflows.
(www.floridaplants.com)
