Twenty years ago, floods in mountainous regions were scarce and infrequent. In regions where nearly half
of all precipitation falls as snow, it was easy for trees to shield the snow from the sun. Now, with more and
more trees being cut down by the second, there is nothing to shield the snow from being melted.
Deforestation is to blame for the flooding that is befalling in snowy regions across the world. I read
“Deforestation in Snowy Regions Causes More Floods,” by ERL to better my understanding of this not-so-
natural disaster.
To prove that deforestation really does affect floods, Kim Green, a geoscientist at the University of British
Columbia, used a process called frequency pairing. During this process, researchers review a decade or
more of data all at once to determine how often a flood of given size recurs. “The analysis showed that
deforestation turned 10-year floods into three-to-five-year floods. Twenty-year floods recurred every 10 to 12
years. Most dramatically, 50 year floods happened every 13 years, almost four times as often.” This quote
from the article states that floods are happening more frequently than ever before. Floods that used to occur
every 10 years are now recurring every 3 to 5 years, because of deforestation.
I connected this article to “The Lorax” because both the article and “The Lorax” show the negative effects that
deforestation has on the environment. Another connection I made to this article was in a book I read called
“Hoot” by Carl Hiaasen. In the book, a major corporation is building a restaurant over the borrowing site for
local owls. This relates to the article because in both, manmade things cause the environment to falter.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Not-So-Natural-Disaster
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Megan, your article intrigued me just from the title. It's very disappointing to read that floods are occurring more frequently than usual. I feel as though our generation is just constantly making the environment worse and worse. As you said, only 20 years ago, floods were scarce and infrequent. Now, they are occurring every 3 to 5 years! It's sad to know that it's our generation's fault for the majority of problems in the environment. But now that the problem is addressed, people can start to help the environment rather than hurting it. Maybe there should be a maximum number of trees that can be cut down a year? I would of liked to suggest that people just stop cutting down trees overall, but I know that's not realistic. Great job on your post! I really enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz, and I agree that this generation is destroying the environment more than any generation before us. Hopefully by educating people on the affects that deforestation can have on our environments and on the animals that live in these environments, our generation will be more cautious about how many trees we cut down. There should be a balance of trees being cut down & new trees being planted. I agree that there should be a maximum number of trees cut down per year! Hopefully if enough of us get educated on this topic, we can bring it to the government's attention that htye should make a new law about deforestation.
DeleteI think Liz had a great idea about minimizing deforistation numbers. She said "Maybe there should be a maximum number of trees that can be cut down a year." If this law was enforced i'm sure more trees would have a chance to grow back which will cause less floods which will cause less money damage and death. If i were to add one thing to her statement i would say that the people who cut down the trees should have to replant a tree for every tree they cut down. Most people dont understand, one day, deforestation is going to negatively affect our lives. Everyday we are digging ourselves deeper and deeper into the hole.
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