Flood Country

Floods in the Murray-Darling Basin are crucial sources of water for people, animals and plants in this often dry region of inland eastern Australia. Even so, floods have often been experienced as natural disasters, which have led to major engineering schemes. Flood Country explores the contested and complex history of this region, examining the different ways in which floods have been understood and managed and some of the long-term consequences for people, rivers and ecologies. The book examines many tensions, ranging from early exchanges between Aboriginal people and settlers about the dangers of floods, through to long running disputes between graziers and irrigators over damming floodwater, and conflicts between residents and colonial governments over whose responsibility it was to protect townships from floods. Flood Country brings the Murray-Darling Basin's flood history into conversation with contemporary national debates about climate change and competing access to water for livelihoods, industries and ecosystems. It provides an important new historical perspective on this significant region of Australia, exploring how people, rivers and floods have re-made each other.

An account of the Kananaskis flood showing the event itself, the aftermath, the assessment of damage, and the rebuilding phase. Includes photographs taken before and after the landscape changed.

“If Thoreau drank more whiskey and lived in the desert, he’d write like this.”—High Country News Welcome to the land of wildfire, hypothermia, desiccation, and rattlers. The stark and inhospitable high-elevation landscape of Nevada’s Great Basin Desert may not be an obvious (or easy) place to settle down, but for self-professed desert rat Michael Branch, it’s home. Of course, living in such an unforgiving landscape gives one many things to rant about. Fortunately for us, Branch—humorist, environmentalist, and author of Raising Wild—is a prodigious ranter. From bees hiving in the walls of his house to owls trying to eat his daughters’ cat—not to mention his eccentric neighbors—adventure, humor, and irreverence abound on Branch’s small slice of the world, which he lovingly calls Ranting Hill.

This book points out why organisational or governance aspects are essential for implementing a broad and integrated flood risk management approach. It provides key conclusions on resilient, efficient and legitimate flood risk governance arrangements in vulnerable urban areas in Europe. These are translated into concrete recommendations and good practices that can give you new insights and inspire you to improve policies and practices. The book is a way of spreading the results of the EU 7th Framework Project STAR-FLOOD. The project investigated strategies for dealing with flood risks in 18 vulnerable urban regions in 6 European countries: England, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. STAR-FLOOD focused on governance aspects, from a combined public administration and legal perspective.

Heralding the coming spring, the weather forecast promised a warm and sunny Easter in 1913. Little did the citizens of Tippecanoe County realize that a furious deluge would cause the Wabash River to swell to an ungovernable and lethal height. Bridges collapsed, whole buildings came unmoored from their foundations and washed away and heroic rescue attempts saved lives and cost others. Using previously untold stories and images never before seen in print, Pete Bill and Arnold Sweet unfold the human drama of communities suddenly cut off from the rest of the world and facing a natural disaster that gripped twenty states.