9/7/2025–|Last update: 12:31 (Mecca time)
With the increasing effects of extremist weather, the floods are sweeping people, homes and livelihoods, as heavy rains lead to flooding of rivers, and the seafood waves help push tidal waves on the coast.
Floods lead to the lives of thousands of people annually, and although the outcome of direct deaths is much lower than the proceeds of the largest environmental pathogens, such as high temperatures and air pollution, scientists are not sure of the size of the indirect healthy burden. The consequences of flood may be more deadly than the flood itself, as crops are damaged and diseases are spread.
Several countries have witnessed heavy rains in the past two weeks, some of which were behind massive floods that have caused great destruction and hundreds of Texas, in the United States, South Africa, Nigeria, India, Indonesia and Pakistan.
Floods also force huge numbers of people to flee and evacuate. In 2024, fast water displaced more than 19 million people around the world in a mixture of precautionary evacuation and watershed villages.
And disasters, such as storms and floods, have become less deadly in recent decades, as countries have become relatively more able to manage risks, but the damage caused by them varies greatly, as residents in Bangladesh, Somalia or Nigeria may not receive any warnings before the sudden floods were swept their villages.
On the other hand, thousands of people may be evacuated in Florida, the United States, the Netherlands, or the rich countries to safety, but they will nevertheless lack the possibility of securing the rebuilding of their homes. Texas floods have led to the death of more than 100 people, and the American authorities have found actual difficulty in managing the resulting crisis.
The population who lives in the flood plains and on the coasts, where the largest part of the global population growth occurs, is usually at risk, and human and economic losses are greater.
Climate change price
Burning fossil fuels has increased the planet’s temperature, which increased the risk of heavy rains leading to massive floods in Europe, most Asia, Central and East North America, parts of South America, Africa and Australia.
One of the established physical rules is that warm air is able to maintain a larger moisture – about 7% per degree degree – but this depends on the amount of water available.
Perhaps it is amazing that the lack of water may exacerbate floods, as it dries the ground, as the solid solid soil does not absorb water, and it is gathering and gathering in low areas, allowing the water level to rise at a much faster rate. Floods are also affected by human factors such as the presence of defenses against floods and land use.
The change of coastal flood climate by raising the sea level, and this effect has reached a great end that the international government agency concerned with climate change found that the high tide, which was happening once every century, would strike most of the world’s coasts every year by 2100.
This tremendous increase will occur even in light of optimistic scenarios to reduce pollution, and will occur in many coastal cities by the middle of the century.
How to adapt to floods?
Floods are destroyed by infrastructure, such as bridges, roads and railways, in addition to property such as homes and cars, as they can destroy companies and disable offices, schools and hospitals.
When the sudden floods struck Slovenia in 2023, it caused damage estimated at 10 billion euros, equivalent to about 16% of the country’s gross domestic product. In the United States, direct flood losses in assets are estimated at up to half a trillion dollars annually.
The recent floods, which caused widespread damage in parts of the US state of Texas, led to economic losses ranging in total value between 18 and 22 billion dollars.
Experts indicate that it is difficult to deal with the destroyed floods with the presence of climate change caused by human activities, and unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, the current solution remains in reducing losses and adapting to the risk of floods.
On the global level, the largest progress in saving lives is made thanks to the early warning systems that alert people to danger and help them survive before it happens. This progress has proven especially effective in medium -income countries, where most people live, even though it is still difficult in the poorest regions of the world.
The construction of dams and detention ponds can also reduce the damage of heavy rains. In cities, parks and other green spaces can absorb rain water before turning into a flood. On the coasts, marine walls can prevent water from entering.
But scientists warn against limits to adapt to the high temperature of the planet and the increasing risk of extremist weather. It is increasingly talking about what is known as “organized withdrawal” to permanently remove people from danger.
Some societies around the world have actually followed this path, which means deserting homes and cities that are threatened more, and includes in the case of the small island states flooded by the sea, the desertion of entire countries.
