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Description:Three major storms during the past twenty years, Hurricanes Floyd (1999), Matthew (2016) and Florence (2018), have resulted in loss of life and billions of dollars in impacts to homes, businesses, transportation infrastructure, agriculture, and commerce and hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency response and recovery costs. The frequency and intensity of severe storms and associated flooding are expected to increase due to climate change. Major engineered water control structures such as dams and levees are not practical or affordable in the North Carolina Coastal Plain, because they cannot store much water on relatively flat land, and would need massive berms and construction, and require inundating vast areas. In response, an innovative network of dispersed natural flood mitigation systems has been proposed. The large-scale implementation of strategically located natural infrastructure (NI) measures (e.g. wetlands, forests, water control systems) to increase water storage capacity and reduce flooding was evaluated in the middle Neuse River Basin.
NI implementation will require installation and management on private working lands, so landowners should be involved in the process early. Other state’s conservation-based flood mitigation programs, such as Iowa and Minnesota, could serve as possible program models. Finally, because reductions in existing flooding impacts through NI are limited and future storms are projected to increase flooding, it is recommended that North Carolina restrict future development or redevelopment in floodplains to reduce future losses.
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Rights Information:CC0 Public Domain
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