Streamflow (Recent Trends - North America) -- Summary

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In a perceptive study of 20th-century streamflow trends, Lins and Slack (1999) state that "floods and droughts cause more damage annually in the United States than any other natural disaster," and that "there is an increasing trend in both flood damage and drought vulnerability." However, they note that "most of the flood damage increase stems from continuing urban and suburban development on floodplains," and that "drought vulnerability increase is from development in regions of lower renewable water supplies." Nevertheless, there is a widespread perception, as the two researchers describe it, that "extreme hydrologic events are increasing in frequency and/or magnitude." In particular, they cite the Mississippi floods of 1993, the widespread United States flooding of 1997 in the West, Upper Midwest and Ohio Valley, as well as the droughts of 1988 and 1995-96, as giving "rise to speculation that floods and droughts are increasing, possibly in response to greenhouse warming," which is a concept that is widely promulgated by the world's climate alarmists. Consequently, in this brief Summary we review what has been learned about this contention as it pertains to North America.

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