Flood wall
A flood wall (or floodwall) is a primarily vertical artificial barrier designed to temporarily contain the waters of a river or other waterway which may rise to unusual levels during seasonal or extreme weather events. Flood walls are mainly used on locations where space is scarce, such as cities or where building levees or dikes would interfere with other interests, such as existing buildings, historical architecture or commercial exploitation of embankments.
Flood walls are nowadays mainly constructed from pre-fabricated concrete elements. Flood walls often have "flood gates" which are large openings to provide passage except during periods of flooding, when they are closed. As flood walls mostly consist of relatively short elements compared to dikes, the connections between the elements are critical to the failure of flood walls.
The substantial costs of flood walls can be justified by the value of commercial property thus protected from damage caused by flooding. Flood walls are almost solely used in cities, notably:
- Cologne, Germany
- Nijmegen, the Netherlands
- Deventer, the Netherlands
- Kampen, the Netherlands
- Huntington, West Virginia
- Portsmouth, Ohio
- St. Louis, Missouri
- Louisville, Kentucky
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Paducah, Kentucky
- Morgan City, Louisiana
- New Orleans, Louisiana
- Richmond, Virginia.
- Williamson, West Virginia
- South Williamson, Kentucky
- Woodland, Washington
- Grand Forks, North Dakota
- East Grand Forks, Minnesota
In September 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, Louisiana, was substantially flooded after its system of levees and flood walls failed due to soil conditions and poor design.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- DeltaWorks.Org Flood Barriers project in the Netherlands
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