The “San Diego Rapids”
As I took the photos to document the flooded street, several San Diegans referred to this as the “San Diego Rapids.” Granted, this area of Fashion Valley is prone to flooding. But this year, it’s done so far more than usual. It’s a floodplain.
We have known this for a long time. It is silly to develop it further and put more cement over it. We all know water does not go into cement. One of the adaptation measures recommended by the International Panel on Climate Change is leaving flood plains alone. They are essential to avoid worse floods as the climate becomes more unpredictable.
The fact is that droughts are becoming more intense, but so are flooding events:
Human-caused climate change has also made floods and droughts more likely and more severe.
Between 1970 and 2019, 7% of all “disaster events” were drought-related. However, drought disasters accounted for 34% of disaster deaths, particularly in Africa.
Meanwhile, severe rains made more likely by climate change have caused catastrophic flooding in areas such as western Europe, China, Japan, the US, Peru and Brazil since 2014.
Changes in these water-related hazards “disproportionately impact vulnerable populations such as the poor, women, children, Indigenous peoples and the elderly in all locations”, the report warns.