How does flooding affect animals

Flooding causes and effects have far-reaching consequences. There are times of the year where floods are more likely to occur due to hurricanes and typhoons. What are social impacts? Flooding issues include families being displaced resulting in trauma.

Mental health professionals should be part of the emergency response team to help people deal with the consequences of the loss of property and loved ones. Long term challenges may include having to deal with the loss of livelihood and property. Individuals affected need to rebuild their lives and possessions. Government help is needed in disseminating aid and repairing structures that can help a community recover.

The environment can get severely devastated from a flood. Flood is mainly dirty water that carries waterborne diseases and possibly chemicals that can affect the quality of soil in the environment.

The water supply in an area may get polluted from flood water resulting in diseases and epidemic. How does flooding affect rivers? When there is too much rainwater especially after seasonal rainfalls the water in the river overflows and travels to the surrounding land or area. Places near rivers and bodies of water are always at risk of floods. How do floods affect animals? Like people, animals can get displaced during a flood.

Many animals die during a flood because their habitats have been destroyed. Pests and wild animals such as snakes may migrate to densely populated areas and cause much havoc. In such cases, you may need a pro exterminator to get rid of those animals. Effect of flooding on property value can cause real estate in an area to plummet. In cities and residential areas, the first thing that people look for is safe disaster free areas which are not near earthquake zones or prone to flooding.

There are zones or areas that are more susceptible to flooding because of poor town planning or proximity to bodies of water.

Floods also cause excess sedimentation, Chandler says, which can spawn a host of other complications in river ecosystems—preventing animals from spotting food, inhibiting the growth of natural vegetation, and disrupting the natural food chain. In the future, large sediment deposits can even cause upstream flooding.

The species is currently rampant in the lower parts of the Kansas River system, and Buehler speculates that the flooding has the invasive fish well on their way to the previously untraversed upper part of the river.

Stranded carp in Kansas Courtesy Dawn Buehler. Wildlife officials at USFWS are preparing to mitigate the consequences of more frequent flooding on wildlife by focusing on floodplain management and improved land-use practices. To that end, the service is working with private landowners to implement buffer strips, which catch sediment and runoff from agricultural fields before it pollutes streams. USFWS also works to maintain riparian areas, which can protect against streambank erosion and loss of floodplain forest.

The solutions, of course, are complex. Something went wrong. Please email webmaster sierraclub. James Hitchcock. How will the recent storms and floods have affected our wildlife? The impacts are many and diverse but a few key issues: The volume of water running through our rivers may wash out fish and their fry who can become stranded when the water recedes.

What can we do? Related blog posts. Fallen debris can block underground burrows and trap animals inside, and diseases found in soil can be spread when trees are uprooted. Animals can take refuge in abandoned buildings and felled trees, posing a risk to their lives as unstable structures may collapse or be moved in the clearing and rebuilding process.

Dangerous substances, such as asbestos, that are released when buildings are hit can cause contamination, and fires can also be started when electrical cables are damaged. A tornado can be extremely traumatic for domestic animals as well.

Pets are separated from their owners, swept away or killed. Disorientated and confused by the unusual activity and the drastic change to their surroundings, they can sometimes think they have been abandoned. Shelters experience a rise in the number of animals they take in, and many owners that have lost their pets are unable to find them again.

A natural disaster can revitalise an area, whilst evolution has meant that animals living in places prone to them are able to survive despite the destruction. Animals and plants transported in the water are able to travel and recolonise somewhere new, ensuring the survival of their species. Wildlife will usually return to repopulate an area, often within a short amount of time of the disaster occurring, or a different species may take up residence.

Fires can enrich soils with fresh nutrients, and animals can be attracted back to the new growth in places affected by a recent fire.

Where devastation appears to be the only result of extreme weather, new animal life can be encouraged to repopulate. This demonstrates how natural disasters ensure the continuation of evolution.