If you live in the Chadds Ford, PA area, you will not be surprised that a Philadelphia Inquirer analysis of the area’s most flood-prone waterways found the Brandywine ranks number one.
Anthony R. Wood and Stephen Stirling report for the Philadelphia Inquirer – In a region where flooding is a perennial threat, an Inquirer analysis of the area’s most flood-prone waterways found the Brandywine ranks among the elite, based on available U.S. Geological Survey data.
A total of 61 major and moderate floods have occurred since 2005 at Chadds Ford and three other gages on the main stem of the Brandywine and its branches. The Brandywine East Branch near Downingtown has registered more major and moderate floods, with 33 combined, than any gage point in the region.
No. 2 on the list was the Delaware River at Burlington, with seven major and 19 moderate floods, although that is not quite the same as stream flooding. Technically, flooding measured on the five Delaware River gages south of Trenton, including the one at Washington Avenue in South Philly, is “tidal,” since it is influenced by the behavior of the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay.
The chaotic behavior of the atmosphere may forever be elusive; however, more flooding along the Brandywine, the Delaware, and the rest of the region’s waterways is an absolute certainty.
Various studies have documented increases in extreme precipitation events with the warming of the planet. But humans are affecting the flood calculus immeasurably by hard-topping rain-absorbent vegetation.
Read the full story, and use the interactive map, here.