What is a flood?

Leading positions among natural disasters are floods. And what is a flood? This is a massive flooding of large areas of land by water, which can occur for various reasons.

For the reasons for the occurrence of such a disaster read in our article The causes of floods.

Types of floods

There are two main types of flooding: river andmarine. The first occurs as a result of flooding the river, and the second - due to hurricanes or tsunamis. There are also types of this natural disaster:

• Flood is the type of flood that occurs as a result of flooding of rivers, and it repeats periodically, most often in the spring. At high water lowlands are flooded.
• The flood is a type similar to the high water, but it is characterized by short duration. Floods can occur several times a year, the cause is the rapid melting of snows, downpours, etc.
• The congestion is a flood that occurs due to the blockage of the river bed during the spring ice drift.
• Zazhor is a type of flood that occurs during winter freeze-up, when loose ice clogs the narrow parts of the channel. Because of this, the river level rises upstream.
• Wind surge - arises from the action of strong air currents in places where rivers flow into the seas, large lakes or reservoirs.
• Floods that arise from the breakthrough of artificial dams or dams.

Scale of floods

On the scale of flooding classified as follows:

• Low - cover small areas, mostly coastal, flooded no more than 10% of farmland.
• Dangerous - cover relatively large areas (10-20% of farmland).
• Especially dangerous - flood more than half of the territories of agricultural land, as well as settlements.
• Catastrophic - damage to ecosystems, floods more than 70% of the earth, can lead to death of people.

For more information about what concerns these and other emergencies, see our article What is an emergency.