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Experts at Assembly hearing warn Californiafaces rapidly rising flood risk from stronger storms
Summary
Researchers told the California State Assembly at an informational hearing that flooding risk across the state is increasing because of climate-driven intensification of atmospheric rivers, current flood planning relies on past hydrology, and federal partners and funding are increasingly unreliable.
California faces a growing and urgent flood risk driven by stronger storms and rising atmospheric moisture, a panel of water experts told a State Assembly informational hearing on flooding.
Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, told the Assembly that climate projections indicate more intense atmospheric rivers, increasing the probability of very large floods. "The great flood of 1861-62 . . . may now be our hundred year flood," Mount said, summarizing recent modeling that shifts what had been considered very rare events into far higher frequencies.
Mount said flood risk is a function of event probability and economic exposure and that both are rising. He cited estimates of multi-billion-dollar annual damages even in relatively mild recent years and repeated…
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