Floods are the most common type of natural disaster. Often the result of heavy rain, snowmelt or storm surges in coastal areas, floodwaters can wreak havoc on your home, land and outbuildings. Luckily, there are several ways to help prevent flooding that don’t entail moving to a new homestead. Stay high and dry with these 10 tips.
1. Build on Proper Grading
If you’re building a homestead from scratch, start by looking at maps of the surrounding area. Determine the average precipitation levels and flood history of your property.
Identify spots with higher ground where you could build your home, barn, greenhouse and other buildings. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. The higher the elevation compared to surrounding waterways, the more protected your homestead will be against flooding.
If you’re building in a very flat, flood-prone region — like a wetland or coastal plain — consider elevating buildings with stilts, raised platforms, or banks of earth or concrete. While this won’t prevent flooding, it will protect your buildings against damage should flooding occur.
You still have options if you already built your homestead in a flood-prone area. Lawn grades that lead toward your home are more likely to cause water damage. If your yard slopes toward your house, consider regrading it to redirect the water flow.
Regrading is the process of leveling the land or changing the slope so water drains away from buildings. For small projects, you may only need a landscaping rake, wheelbarrow and power tiller to get the job done. However, consider renting heavy machinery like an excavator or backhoe for major regrading projects.
Regrading a yard typically takes a few days because you only have to regrade the areas near buildings. Although the process may cost several thousand dollars, it’s worth it if your homestead is prone to flooding. It’s much cheaper than rebuilding your entire home or barn after a flood.
2. Embrace Native Plants
The plants that grow naturally in an area have spent thousands — or even millions — of years adapting to the local climate. They may have longer, tougher roots to anchor them during floods and might have evolved to soak up more water than plants in drier locales. They’re one of your best allies when it comes to flood prevention.
For example, in many coastal areas, mangrove trees act as breakwaters to lessen the impact of oncoming storms and soak up significant amounts of water. They can reduce up to 66% of wave energy within the first hundred meters of forest width. If mangroves went extinct, 15 million additional people would experience flooding every year.
Rather than planting exotic trees, vegetables and hay on every available inch of dirt, set part of your homestead aside to dedicate to native plants. That’s not to say you shouldn’t manage the land — you can still do rotational grazing, prescribed burns and invasive plant removal as necessary. But resist the temptation to rip everything out or replant the fields with your favorite wildflowers. The native plants might be helping you more than you realize.
3. Install Floodwalls
Instead of building at a higher elevation or regrading your property, another technique is to build floodwalls around buildings you want to protect. Floodwalls are a permanent structural solution to flooding and are usually made of concrete. They can withstand high water pressure without falling or becoming displaced. Floodwalls feature a manual or automatic watertight gate.
While more common around whole towns and villages, concrete perimeters can also protect individual dwellings in flood-prone areas. You can incorporate them into the landscaping by adding decorative bricks or rocks to the concrete.
4. Maintain Gutters and Downspouts
Gutters play an integral role in flood prevention. Without them, rain would pour off the roof and soak directly into your home’s foundation, potentially damaging it. They also protect the plants surrounding your home, prevent rain from eroding the ground and stop standing water from accumulating near your house.
Clogged gutters can direct water into your basement, leading to flooding and water damage. They may stop draining properly and fill with water, the weight of which causes them to separate from the roof. They can also let moisture enter your home and rot the wooden boards the gutters attach to. That’s why maintaining them is integral to protecting your homestead against flooding.
Downspouts should always divert water away from your home. Ensure they point in the right direction — if they are, you can extend them to protect your house further.
Keep gutters clean and free of leaves, mud, sticks, and other debris. Use a garden hose or a trowel to unclog them. For extensive jobs, you can hire a professional to clean your gutters.
5. Dig a Pond
In addition to helping you raise fish or livestock, a pond can serve as a catchment for extra water on your property. Retention ponds — also called stormwater ponds or retention basins — are common in many suburban areas trying to reduce flooding and pollution from runoff.
In areas with impermeable surfaces like roads, parking lots and sidewalks, rainwater has nowhere to go during a storm and often contributes to flooding. It can also pick up pollutants on its way back into the ground. Similarly, deserts often have hard, packed soil that does not easily absorb rainwater, leading to flash floods in rural areas.
There are two main types of stormwater ponds — wet and dry. As the name suggests, a dry pond is empty most of the time but fills with water quickly during a heavy downpour. Dry ponds are more prevalent in desert climates due to higher evaporation rates.
In contrast, wet ponds always hold some water and get even fuller during storms. They can also serve as stock tanks or fish ponds in rural areas with few pollutants.
Whichever type of pond you use, ensure none of the channels leading to the pond pass over fertilized fields or animal manure. Keeping the pond uncontaminated is essential because it will likely attract wildlife. A clean pond can even serve as a place to swim or go boating on hot days, increasing your property’s value.
6. Plant Rain Gardens
Rain gardens — also called bioretention facilities or stormwater gardens — reduce the flow rate and quantity of runoff during a flood. It’s typical to plant them in shallow depressions in the ground or areas that tend to overflow during storms so they can soak up more water. You can also make swales or drainage pipes lead to a rain garden to irrigate it further.
A rain garden usually has sandy, loamy and well-draining soil to maximize water absorption. Use native plants to reduce maintenance costs and soak up the most water possible. Native plant rain gardens are also great for wildlife — they attract pollinators, reptiles and small mammals, as well as insects favored by local birds.
Of course, you can also use stormwater gardens to beautify your property or even grow crops. For rain gardens that capture small amounts of runoff, try planting onions, carrots or spinach. Arugula, peas and tomatoes tend to do well in gardens that receive moderate amounts of water. For heavily irrigated rain gardens, try planting watercress, blueberries or currants. Look at planting guides for your region to determine which plants will work best.
7. Add Swales
A swale is a shallow trench directing water where you need it to go. Common on roadsides, swales are usually narrow, grassy channels leading to sewer drains. You can also point them into ponds or gardens to serve as natural irrigation lines, and help with your homesteading projects. Because most swales contain plants, they also soak up some water along the way.
A typical swale is around 6 inches to 1 ½ feet deep and around 2 feet wide. The length varies depending on how much land you have, the amount of water you can catch, and how much water you need for your ponds and crops. It’s common to line the sides of swales with berms to improve water flow.
Some people plant along the berm, while others plant directly in the swale itself. In desert climates, growing in the trench can help irrigate plants before the water evaporates. In others, planting on the sides is more common because rainfall in the swale could overwhelm plants’ roots.
You should build swales uphill from gardens or low spots with poor drainage. It’s also important to keep them away from septic drain fields to avoid contamination.
8. Install a Gravel Driveway
Although an asphalt-paved driveway is smoother, gravel drives help water percolate into the ground and prevent puddles from forming easily. They slow the water flow and allow the soil to absorb more rainfall. They’re also affordable and easy to maintain by replenishing the gravel every few years.
Drainage gravel — which is specifically designed for drainage systems — also has strong heat absorption properties. During the day, it takes in the sun’s rays and radiates the stored heat at night. This process helps it dry quickly.
Gravel driveways are also smart choices in flood-prone areas because they make driving easier in wet conditions. During a storm, dirt driveways can quickly become soggy and muddy, compromising driver safety or even becoming impassable. Gravel helps prevent erosion that would typically deform the driveway in a flood.
9. Leave Grass Intact
Dry, hard-packed soil and rocky fields are notorious for flooding. Rather than absorbing rain, they let the water flow across the surface until it becomes a flash flood. That’s one reason grassy fields and meadows are less susceptible to flash floods than deserts.
Grass roots create pores in the soil that help the land store water. Long, mature root systems and tall stems absorb more water than shallow roots or cut grass. Therefore, older grass tends to mitigate flooding better than newly planted or mowed grass. Long stems also slow the movement of water through fields, potentially stopping floodwaters before they reach buildings.
If you have a large homestead and don’t live in a place with homeowners’ association restrictions against it, let some of your grass grow long. It’s still wise to mow around buildings during wildfire season or very dry years, but letting your pastures grow lush is good for avoiding flooding. It also boosts biodiversity and enables you to feed livestock on your own property rather than buying hay.
10. Use Rain Barrels
Your home should already have gutters to redirect water away from it. But instead of letting the water run back into the ground or pool around your house, why not catch it in a rain barrel? It’s a great choice for people interested in off-grid living because it can connect to your plumbing system.
A rainwater catchment system serves two purposes — preventing flooding and giving you extra water to use as necessary. It can even help you save on your water bill.
The simplest rainwater harvesting system is to put barrels under your gutters to catch the runoff directly. Unfiltered rainwater is not potable because it may contain bacteria, viruses, pollution and outdoor debris. However, you can still use it to irrigate crops, wash your car, clean outdoor structures or flush toilets.
Filtered rainwater has even more uses, including drinking, cooking, bathing and watering livestock. You can also use it to refill a fish pond or stock tank. The most high-tech rainwater catchment systems filter and purify the water in addition to storing it, and you can hook them up to your indoor plumbing. Place rain barrels strategically to help keep your property dry and take homesteading to the next level.
Protecting Your Homestead Against Flooding
There are numerous ways to prevent flooding or mitigate its effects on your property. Flooding may be inevitable in some cases, but you can still minimize its impact so you can get back to doing what you do best — homesteading, rain or shine. Utilize the above ideas to prevent a flooded homestead and further your ideals by obtaining resources right from the source.
[Note: This was a guest post.]
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