A flood wall (or floodwall) is a primarily vertical artificial barrier designed to temporarily contain the waters of a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...

or other waterway which may rise to unusual levels during seasonal or

extreme weather Extreme weather or extreme climate events includes unexpected, unusual, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Often, extreme events are based on a loca ...

events. Flood walls are mainly used on locations where space is scarce, such as cities or where building levees or dikes (dykes) would interfere with other interests, such as existing buildings, historical architecture or commercial use of embankments. Flood walls are nowadays mainly constructed from pre-fabricated concrete elements. Flood walls often have

floodgate Floodgates, also called stop gates, are adjustable gates used to control water flow in flood barriers, reservoir, river, stream, or levee systems. They may be designed to set spillway crest heights in dams, to adjust flow rates in sluices a ...

s which are large openings to provide passage except during periods of flooding, when they are closed. As a flood walls mostly consist of relatively short elements compared to dikes, the connections between the elements are critical to prevent the failure of the flood wall. The substantial costs of flood walls can be justified by the value of commercial property thus protected from damage caused by

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

ing. Flood walls are almost always built in cities, notably: *

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wi ...

Cologne, Germany Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 million ...

* Columbus, Ohio *

Coralville, Iowa Coralville is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is a suburb of Iowa City and part of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 22,318 at the 2020 census. History Coralville is the location of the Edgewat ...

* Deventer, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

East Grand Forks, Minnesota East Grand Forks (also known as EGF) is a city in Polk County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 9,176 at the 2020 Census, making it the largest community in Polk County. It is located in the Red River Valley region along the easte ...

* Grand Forks, North Dakota * Huntington, West Virginia * Kampen, the

* Kansas City, Missouri *

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

* Morgan City, Louisiana *

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

* Nijmegen, the

Ottawa, Kansas Ottawa (pronounced ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Franklin County, Kansas, United States. It is located on both banks of the Marais des Cygnes River near the center of Franklin County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the c ...

Paducah, Kentucky Paducah ( ) is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky. The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Miss ...

* Parkersburg, West Virginia *

Portsmouth, Ohio Portsmouth is a city in and the county seat of Scioto County, Ohio, United States. Located in southern Ohio south of Chillicothe, it lies on the north bank of the Ohio River, across from Kentucky, just east of the mouth of the Scioto River. ...

* Richmond, Virginia *

Scranton, Pennsylvania Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming V ...

South Williamson, Kentucky South Williamson is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Appalachian Mountains of northeastern Pike County, Kentucky, United States, on the border with West Virginia. It is separated from Williamson, West Virginia by the Tug Fork River. The c ...

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Williamson, West Virginia Williamson is a city in Mingo County, West Virginia, United States, situated along the Tug Fork River. The population was 3,191 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Mingo County, and is the county's largest and most populous city. Willi ...

Woodland, Washington Woodland is a city in Clark and Cowlitz counties in the State of Washington. Most residents live within Cowlitz County, in which the majority of the city lies. It is part of the ' Longview, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area'. The populatio ...

External links

DeltaWorks.Org
Flood Barriers project in the Netherlands {{coastal management Flood barriers

See also

External links