On Borrowed Land

Flooding is a natural hydrologic occurrence, but flood-related damage to property and the risks to human life are exacerbated by urban growth and other intensive development in floodplains. The conventional response has been to construct ever-larger flood control systems, but floodplains are not fixed and they defy simply structural solutions. The report considers ecological, economic and legal issues of land use in floodplains through case studies of local responses to the disastrous 1993 floods in the Midwest, as well as other river basin management programs around the country.