On the 16th of May there was a torrential downpour in the region of Emilia Romagna in my home country Italy. The seemingly never-ending precipitation caused the river banks to overflow, with mud and rubble being carried along with the flood. In mere hours, mud was all that could be seen. Mud filled houses, streets, hotels, stores, restaurants, pharmacies...just about everywhere. As a result of this extreme weather 15 people lost their lives and an estimated 20,000 were left homeless. The economic damage totals to around 9 billion euros.
Those who experienced the flood lost books, clothes, furniture, pictures, cars, beds, and many their only home. How did this happen? Experts say it is due to the world's biggest problem. You guessed it, climate change. There is no denying it, the planet is suffering and we just can't seem to keep up with the consequences of generational negligence. Rising water levels due to global warming coupled with "poor river management" (as said by Euronews) in Emilia Romagna were the causes of this tremendous loss.
We need to come up with solutions! Of course, no one can single handedly stop global warming and its consequences, but we can come up with a plan to stop it from harming us any further than it already has. Many rivers lack flood control structures and therefore, make their surrounding areas danger zones in the case of such an event. We need to work out the best environmental engineering solutions to this problem and find the most durable materials and an infallible system to prevent this from happening again.
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