CONCLUSION - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 307

committees. With so many people and jurisdictions involved, overlap, redundancies,
and rivalries are inevitable.
For America to take water management as seriously as Singapore does, it will have
to streamline its byzantine governance system and create a new office at the federal
level—perhaps a water czar or an interagency national water board * —to develop a
framework for federal, state, and local agencies (many of which struggle in isolation) to
operate in sync. A federal water office could set new quality standards, work with ex-
isting regulators, coordinate agencies on all levels, and fund research into new ways to
adapt to changing conditions.
THE OTHER WATER PROBLEM
In a century destined for increased water scarcity, climatologists say, the world will also
face more flooding.
In 2010, protracted rains sent high water surging down China's Yangtze River, strain-
ing the Three Gorges Dam—the world's largest hydroelectric project—setting off mud-
slides, and causing deaths and evacuations. In just that year, over a thousand people
were killed and $21 billion in damage was caused by floods across China. In Indonesia,
meanwhile, a tsunami killed at least four hundred people, and in Pakistan, where flood-
ing was the worst in eighty years, more than sixteen hundred people were lost to floods.
In the United States, high rains caused the Red, James, and Missouri Rivers to overflow
and flooded thousands of acres throughout the Midwest, forcing mass evacuations in
Fargo and Bismarck, North Dakota, and Moorhead, Minnesota. People were rescued by
helicopter, and the National Guard was once again called on to build emergency flood
defenses with sandbags.
While worries about flooding often take a backseat to fears of drought, the projected
rise in precipitation and sea levels this century will become a serious problem that needs
to be addressed with stricter oversight and greater investment.
The United States can learn much from the example of Holland (as detailed in
chapter 21 ), which has the world's best flood-defense system. As with Singaporean wa-
ter conservation, the key to Dutch flood control is a serious, national commitment. For
America to build effective flood controls, the 1928 Flood Control Act, immunizing the
US Army Corps of Engineers from prosecution when its levees fail, must be rewritten.
The Corps itself must be revamped, and given support to replace the failing infrastruc-
ture with robust flood defenses that integrate traditional concrete and steel structures
with natural storm-barriers, such as reeds, wetlands, and islands.