(haipo) - What causes the recurring floods every year in winter? Can the problem be solved and how? Yaron Ben Ari, water engineer A veteran and expert in the field of urban carpenter management and Agni, in a face-to-face interview.
Over 1,300 inquiries were received at the municipal call center 106, last Sunday due to the amount of rain that fell relentlessly and we have not yet started the winter season. Every year we witness repeated floods in the city of Haifa, some of which even cause damage. Every time the residents see the floods repeating themselves and every year anew and we automatically enter a new year 2024, many questions arise and wonder how it is possible that we will not find a solution to the problem.
Global warming - the hourly and daily amounts of rain have changed
Yaron Ben Ari, a veteran water engineer and an expert in the field of urban runoff management, explains what causes flooding in the city:
The drainage systems are designed using the "statistical planning" method, which means that the planners examine the amounts of rainfall over a 30-year period, according to which they determine a return period and an expectation of the amount of rainfall that can fall once every 5 years, 10 or 100 years. This is the practice all over the world, but in recent years, due to climate change and global warming, there is greater evaporation of seawater, which creates aggressive rain systems. Therefore, the expectation and forecasting of quantities has completely changed.
The rain that falls today has doubled in daily measurement. That is, if we take for example the amount that fell on Sunday - more than 100 mm of rain, this is 18% of the annual amount of rain, since it is so, it is impossible to overcome this amount of rain with the existing drainage infrastructure. The first serious rain must also be taken into account that washes with it and sweeps everything away with it so that even with clean drainage systems will be clogged which will increase the problem.
There are no magic solutions and it is impossible to make systems that will absorb all the amounts of rain
To the question of whether the issue is solvable and the problem can be overcome, Ben Ari says that two years ago TMA 1 was published for the State of Israel and it contains Amendment 8 which talks about the issue of runoff water/rainwater.
The amendment requires the developer to provide solutions for the runoff water, by injecting the water into the subsoil, this through drilling or a 'green roof' or even building a pool in the yard of the house in a park or public area so that in this area the water can accumulate for a day and drain later.
At this stage, when the interview is being conducted, I am not sure if this is legislated into a binding law, but it should be understood that there are no magic solutions for draining surface runoff and it is impossible to make systems that will absorb all the amounts of water. We see floods and flooding in the world and severe flooding that we saw two years ago in Germany and the United States.
Flooding in the sewer system and disconnection of rainwater gutters from the municipal sewer system
Regarding the sewage overflows, which occur during the rain systems and the inability to absorb large amounts at the Wastewater Treatment Institute, he says, it is important to understand that the water corporations have standards and regulations according to which The drainage systems must be disconnected from the sewers, but the problem is that the water corporation does not have permission to enter private areas and do so (control over construction in private areas is the responsibility of the municipality).
We know today that many apartment owners connect gutters and surface runoff (rainwater) drainage systems to the sewer systems. The disconnection of the gutters from the sewage systems can only be done in cooperation with the municipality and through it with the property owners. The existing difficulty in the urban area is that it is difficult to identify who and where are the buildings that connected drainage systems (mainly gutters) to the sewage systems because these are private areas.
As part of my role as a controller in the Ministry of Environmental Protection, this is one of the things we examine and slowly try to disconnect all the houses from these connections.
Haifa Municipality's response: "Despite the increased preparation, it is not possible to prevent localized flooding in extreme rain events"
The Haifa Municipality stated that the employees of the Operations Administration are continuing to deal with the damage from the recent rain, and preparing the drainage systems for the next rain systems. The head of the administration, Ohad Dorfman, explains that despite the increased preparation - it is not possible to prevent localized flooding in extreme rain events that result, among other things, from climate change, and therefore the municipality is preparing to provide a quick response and repair unavoidable damages immediately.
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To the honorable engineer Yaron Ben Ari - you are out of business!
There is no global warming, and there is no climate crisis. Start researching the topic. Look for lectures by Prof. Jonathan Duby. And scientists are awake!!!
We are in the middle of Agenda 2030, and therefore we are engineering our consciousness with all kinds of invented "epidemics", "and climate crises" that do not exist.
Don't fall into this trap.
You will find engineering solutions to the problem of flooding in the city.
That's your job. We don't buy the excuse of a "climate crisis", because there is no such crisis. This is consciousness engineering!!!
Go and learn.
In addition to this - "There are no solutions" and "Magic" are a pair that shows that there are no engineers among the readers.
Climate change is one thing, and it exists.
There is no global warming, if already in recent years there is an opposite effect.
Here you lost the shadow of credibility.
Stop lying about this climate change garbage - a complete lie.
The main problem in Haifa is that most of the neighborhoods have a sewage system from the 50s-60s, in the meantime huge new buildings have been built and are not being enlarged, nor are they renovating or replacing new sewage infrastructures.
It's time for the municipality to start making new sewage systems that are suitable for the population growth
Obviously, when there are people in Carmel who were supposed to retire a long time ago and are still working there and not functioning, this is the result. The old man who has been waiting for months on the issue of water shortages must end his job immediately!!
Precious pearl! You should proofread what you write. So many errors in your post…
are alerted In the end they succeed. Good night
😡🤣🤣🤣 It's clear when unprofessional people run the city/state only when a disaster "wakes up" they blame everyone!!! Improper management, overloading the city with floodwaters for appropriate infrastructure and with the extinguishing of the soil with concrete!! As with the government, we warn them and they frown. This is how it is when no "foda" gives justice, only receiving fat salaries at our expense.