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The 100 Year Flood Is Not What You Think It Is (Maybe)

Practical Engineering
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Today on Practical Engineering we're talking about hydrology, and I took a little walk through my neighborhood to show you some infrastructure you may have never noticed before. Almost everyone agrees that flooding is bad. Most years it’s the number one natural disaster in the US by dollars of damage. So being able to characterize flood risks is a crucial job of civil engineers. Engineering hydrology has equal parts statistics and understanding how society treats risks. Water is incredibly important to us, and it shapes almost every facet of our lives, but it’s almost never in the right place at the right time. Sometimes there’s not enough, like in a drought or just an arid region, but we also need to be prepared for the times when there’s too much water, a flood. Rainfall and streamflow have tremendous variability and it’s the engineer’s job to characterize that so that we can make rational and intelligent decisions about how we develop the wo …...more
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Engineering in Plain Sight: An Illustrated Field Guide to the Constructed Environment Engineering in Plain Sight extends the field guide genre from natural phenomena to human-made structures, making them approachable and understandable to non-engineers. It transforms readers’ perspectives of the built environment, converting the act of looking at infrastructure from a mundane inevitability into an everyday diversion and joy. Each section of this accessible, informative book features colorful illustrations revealing the fascinating details of how the human-made world works. An ideal road trip companion, this book offers a fresh perspective on the parts of the environment that often blend into the background. Readers will learn to identify characteristics of the electrical grid, roadways, railways, bridges, tunnels, waterways, and more. Engineering in Plain Sight inspires curiosity, interest, and engagement in how the infrastructure around us is designed and constructed. Note: Unfortunately, I cannot accommodate custom messages or dedications.
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The 100 Year Flood Is Not What You Think It Is (Maybe)
63KLikes
2,255,591Views
2016Mar 7
Today on Practical Engineering we're talking about hydrology, and I took a little walk through my neighborhood to show you some infrastructure you may have never noticed before. Almost everyone agrees that flooding is bad. Most years it’s the number one natural disaster in the US by dollars of damage. So being able to characterize flood risks is a crucial job of civil engineers. Engineering hydrology has equal parts statistics and understanding how society treats risks. Water is incredibly important to us, and it shapes almost every facet of our lives, but it’s almost never in the right place at the right time. Sometimes there’s not enough, like in a drought or just an arid region, but we also need to be prepared for the times when there’s too much water, a flood. Rainfall and streamflow have tremendous variability and it’s the engineer’s job to characterize that so that we can make rational and intelligent decisions about how we develop the world around us. Thanks for watching! FEMA Floodplain Maps: https://msc.fema.gov/portal USGS Stream Gages: http://maps.waterdata.usgs.gov/mapper... Watch this video and the entire Practical Engineering catalog ad-free on Nebula: https://go.nebula.tv/practical-engine... I use all Patreon earning to improve the quality (and quantity!) of videos:   / practicalengineering   http://practical.engineering Music: Doctor Vox - Gold (   • DOCTOR VOX - Gold [Royalty Free Music]  )

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Practical Engineering

4.33M subscribers