Mississippi River Tragedies


Book Description

Read a free excerpt here! American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over a thousand miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called “natural disasters” continue to strike the Mississippi basin, as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico. In some places, only the tombstones remain, leaning at odd angles as the underlying soil erodes away. Mississippi River Tragedies reveals that it is seductively deceptive—but horribly misleading—to call such catastrophes “natural.” Authors Christine A. Klein and Sandra B. Zellmer present a sympathetic account of the human dreams, pride, and foibles that got us to this point, weaving together engaging historical narratives and accessible law stories drawn from actual courtroom dramas. The authors deftly uncover the larger story of how the law reflects and even amplifies our ambivalent attitude toward nature—simultaneously revering wild rivers and places for what they are, while working feverishly to change them into something else. Despite their sobering revelations, the authors’ final message is one of hope. Although the acknowledgement of human responsibility for unnatural disasters can lead to blame, guilt, and liability, it can also prod us to confront the consequences of our actions, leading to a liberating sense of possibility and to the knowledge necessary to avoid future disasters.




Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome


Book Description

Publisher description




Retrofitting for Flood Resilience


Book Description

This book educates and introduce readers to the ways in which we can adapt to the threat of flooding throughout the built and natural environment. It offers advice on how to better understand the nature of flood risk, whilst highlighting the key approaches and principles necessary for developing community and property-level flood resilience. As a comprehensive and practical manual, this book includes richly illustrated diagrams on a variety of concepts and strategies to use when designing for flood resilience. It is vital resource for anyone looking to adapt to the threat of flood risk. Highly practical handbook for architects, students, engineers, urban planners and other built environment professionals Richly illustrated with practical examples and case studies Draws on research with the Cabinet Office, Environment Agency & Local Community as well as input from academic and industry experts, homeowners and residents of communities at risk of flooding.




Underwater


Book Description

Communities around the United States face the threat of being underwater. This is not only a matter of rising waters reaching the doorstep. It is also the threat of being financially underwater, owning assets worth less than the money borrowed to obtain them. Many areas around the country may become economically uninhabitable before they become physically unlivable. In Underwater, Rebecca Elliott explores how families, communities, and governments confront problems of loss as the climate changes. She offers the first in-depth account of the politics and social effects of the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which provides flood insurance protection for virtually all homes and small businesses that require it. In doing so, the NFIP turns the risk of flooding into an immediate economic reality, shaping who lives on the waterfront, on what terms, and at what cost. Drawing on archival, interview, ethnographic, and other documentary data, Elliott follows controversies over the NFIP from its establishment in the 1960s to the present, from local backlash over flood maps to Congressional debates over insurance reform. Though flood insurance is often portrayed as a rational solution for managing risk, it has ignited recurring fights over what is fair and valuable, what needs protecting and what should be let go, who deserves assistance and on what terms, and whose expectations of future losses are used to govern the present. An incisive and comprehensive consideration of the fundamental dilemmas of moral economy underlying insurance, Underwater sheds new light on how Americans cope with loss as the water rises.




Transforming the James River in Richmond


Book Description

The James River is the centerpiece of Richmond, but by the mid-twentieth century it had been abused and neglected. Eagles and sturgeon had nearly disappeared, water-powered industry was abandoning it and the river was a sewer. Today, the river draws visitors to its wooded shorelines, restored canal and feisty rapids. At the local level, this transformation was the result of citizen action, public-private partnerships, difficult decisions by governmental leaders and the hard work of thousands of passionate advocates and volunteers. Local author and lifelong river watcher Ralph Hambrick chronicles the events, projects and controversies that brought about the dramatic change and lends a critical eye to the results.







Hydrodynamics of Free Surface Flows


Book Description

A definitive guide for accurate state-of-the-art modelling of free surface flows Understanding the dynamics of free surface flows is the starting point of many environmental studies, impact studies, and waterworks design. Typical applications, once the flows are known, are water quality, dam impact and safety, pollutant control, and sediment transport. These studies used to be done in the past with scale models, but these are now being replaced by numerical simulation performed by software suites called “hydro-informatic systems”. The Telemac system is the leading software package worldwide, and has been developed by Electricité de France and Jean-Michel Hervouet, who is the head and main developer of the Telemac project. Written by a leading authority on Computational Fluid Dynamics, the book aims to provide environmentalists, hydrologists, and engineers using hydro-informatic systems such as Telemac and the finite element method, with the knowledge of the basic principles, capabilities, different hypotheses, and limitations. In particular this book: presents the theory for understanding hydrodynamics through an extensive array of case studies such as tides, tsunamis, storm surges, floods, bores, dam break flood waves, density driven currents, hydraulic jumps, making this a principal reference on the topic gives a detailed examination and analysis of the notorious Malpasset dam failure includes a coherent description of finite elements in shallow water delivers a significant treatment of the state-of-the-art flow modelling techniques using Telemac, developed by Electricité de France provides the fundamental physics and theory of free surface flows to be utilised by courses on environmental flows Hydrodynamics of Free Surface Flows is essential reading for those involved in computational fluid dynamics and environmental impact assessments, as well as hydrologists, and bridge, coastal and dam engineers. Guiding readers from fundamental theory to the more advanced topics in the application of the finite element method and the Telemac System, this book is a key reference for a broad audience of students, lecturers, researchers and consultants, right through to the community of users of hydro-informatics systems.




The Big U


Book Description

The New York Times Book Review called Neal Stephenson's most recent novel "electrifying" and "hilarious". but if you want to know Stephenson was doing twenty years before he wrote the epic Cryptonomicon, it's back-to-school time. Back to The Big U, that is, a hilarious send-up of American college life starring after years our of print, The Big U is required reading for anyone interested in the early work of this singular writer.




Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States


Book Description

Some vols. include supplemental journals of "such proceedings of the sessions, as, during the time they were depending, were ordered to be kept secret, and respecting which the injunction of secrecy was afterwards taken off by the order of the House".