Global warming worsens flooding risk for Indiana

By Gitte Laasby, Post-Tribune staff writer MERRILLVILLE — Northwest Indiana is at an increased risk for flooding as a result of global warming, according to a report released Thursday. Making matters worse, the region has already committed nearly every mistake in the book as far as preventing floods: We have straightened rivers to speed water flow off the land. We have built in flood-prone areas and developed wetlands that buffer us from floods by absorbing some of the water. And we hope levees will keep us safe. “Development in areas behind levees or in filled areas has proceeded as if there was no flood risk, yet over the 30-year period of a typical mortgage, there is a 26-percent chance of a flood equaling or exceeding the 100-year flood,” states the National Wildlife Federation’s report, “Increased Flooding Risk: Global Warming’s Wake-Up Call for Riverfront Communities.” It lists all these actions as factors that increase flood risk. David Conrad, a specialist with the National Wildlife Federation, said the flood insurance program has discouraged people from moving away from flood plains by selling insurance at artificially low prices that don’t reflect the true risk of living in a flood plain. Global warming is expected to exacerbate flood risks because temperatures are predicted to increase, and warmer air can hold more moisture. That means storms will be more frequent and more intense, according to the report. “While no single storm or flood can be attributed directly to global warming, changing climate conditions are at least partly responsible for past trends” of heavier rainfall events, the report states. …

Flooding risk worsens, NWI report reveals.