Seven years later, a detailed report called "Historical Floods in New England" was produced.Īlthough the report may have lacked hard flood data, it was useful in helping to establish patterns. Department of the Interior launched an ambitious project to gather information on flooding before 1904. Official government records of flooding on major rivers were not kept until 1904. The thing this flood is most noted for, however, is that it created what is now known as the Wethersfield Cove.įlood data from the 17s was largely dependent on the recollections, diaries and journals of local residents, along with newspaper accounts. Not only did the swift-moving water sweep away five of the six warehouses, it also opened up a deep-water shipping channel all the way into Hartford.
Business was so good that by 1692, six warehouses lined the banks of the river. Wethersfield was founded in 1634, and slowly grew into an important shipping port owing to the fact that it was as far inland as large ships could navigate before the Connecticut River became too shallow.
The Wethersfield flood of 1692 is an early example. In an average year, Connecticut experiences measurable precipitation on 130 days, which averages out to 45.9 inches (15th among the contiguous 48 states).Īlthough flooding is common in Connecticut, there have been in our history floods that have stood out. And owing to our geographical location on the ocean, and subject to the whims of the jet stream, we get a lot of weather here. Sometimes, even conservation isn’t the answer, bizarrely enough.Weather, of course, is the catalyst.
What’s especially troubling is cases like the Colorado or the Rio Grande where every last drop is spoken for, because changes in one area of the river can have multiple effects downstream and up. Some fishing towns haven’t seen water in decades. The constant salt exposure gives the Aral Sea residents the highest rate of anemia in the world - in some places, 90% of the children are anemic. The salt that is left on the old shorelines is eventually whipped up in dust storms, getting everywhere. After the two main rivers that fed the Aral were diverted to grow cotton in the desert, the Aral rapidly began losing area and became more saline and more clogged with fertilizers and pesticides. In response, the Chinese are building what will probably amount to the largest water diversion in human history to pipe water from the Yangtze to the North.īut the chapter on the Aral Sea - or more properly, its rotting corpse - is simply bone-chilling. And the Yellow River - the foundation of Chinese civilization, their version of the Nile - now barely makes it to the coastal province of Shandong, the birthplace of Confucius. The Colorado no longer makes it all the way to the Pacific, destroying the habitat of numerous species who thrived in that river’s delta. Some examples: The Rio Grande now ceases to exist shortly after is passes El Paso, only to be reborn from a tributary closer to the sea.
This book manages to convey clearly and starkly the effects we’ve had on rivers and lakes all over the world. We’ve all probably met someone who refused to believe that anthropogenic CO2 could really be responsible for so many problems. I think a lot of people have a hard time imagining that human activity really can have such a profound effect, but this book should be an antidote to that. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist.