Flooding is frequent in most areas which has poor or faulty drainage system. Also, the areas that border the water sources are prone to flooding. For many centuries, St Albans Queens area has experienced a perennial underground flooding causing havoc to the residents. St Albans Queens is a residential area where most residents are middle-class individuals based in the New York City borough of Queens ( Taccari & van der Meij, 2016). Despite their financial capability, these residents have had a problem with their drainage system, a situation which has placed them at a vulnerable state to flooding.
“ Flooding occurs as a result of water rising from the underlying rocks or water flowing from water sources to flat areas on the dry land." There are different causes of flooding. The high water table is one of the causative factors to underground seepage. Further, heavy rainfall is also associated with flooding especially in areas that have poor drainage such as Queen City ( Voloshkina & Julia, 2017). Further, the heavy flooding is also caused by snowmelts which occur during the spring seasons. Furthermore, poor drainage as a result of the ground sewer system is a significant cause of the basement flooding in areas where drainage is less proper. In all situations, the flooding can take place by seepage or flow through the walls or foundation floor, from surface water sources, or by a sanitary or storm sewer backup. In this article, the objective is discuss faulty drainage system as a major factor causes of perennial flooding at St Albans Queens, its effects and outcomes.
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Project Rationale
Flooding has been a big problem for the residents of St Albans Queens. As a result of the poor drainage system as well as the high underground water table, the area experiences flooding even when there is little rainfall. Flooding brings about different disaster to the residents. When there is flooding, a lot of money and properties are lost. This project thus assesses the causes and the impact of the underground flooding experienced by residents when of St Albans Queens with an aim to identify the strategies to rectify the situation. The findings from this project are significant in finding ways to improve the drainage system and also come up with plans to prevent the flooding in this area to reduce flooding in this area.
Objectives, hypothesis, and outcomes
The project will be carried out in line with the following objectives. The first objective is to identify the causes of underground flooding at St Albans Queens. The second objective is to establish the effects of the underground flooding at St Albans Queens. The third objective is to find out the strategies and resources in place to fight the perennial underground flooding at St Albans Queens. The researcher hypothesizes that the flooding at St Albans Queens is caused by the poor drainage and sewer system in the area. At the end of the project, the researcher also aims to find out the level of the residents' satisfaction with the strategies that are in place to combat the situation at St Albans Queens.
Methodology
This will be a qualitative research study that aims at identifying the causes of flooding, its impact, and prevention mechanism at St Albans Queens. The study will entail interview, observation and also documentation reviews as ways of obtaining data for the study.
Sampling method
The sampling method which will be used are stratified, snowball and random sampling. The stratified sampling will provide the researcher with specific areas where the flooding was prone. Further, stratified sampling will be used to come up with a good number of apartments where studies will be conducted. Also, stratified sampling will be used to identify the vulnerable areas where the windshield survey would be done. Other than that, a random sampling technique will be put in place to come up with a good number of people to take part in the interview and participate in the survey. Snowball sampling will provide people who had a similar interest and were critical for an interview during the study. Also, random sampling will be used to come up with many articles to be reviewed for the project. The article selection will be based on the credibility of the author, and the materials. In total, the researcher will visit twelves areas, interviewed ten people reviewed five articles.
Data collection method
There will be many data collection methods employed for this project. The first will be an interview. The interview will be done on two faces. The first face will be the telephone interview where the researcher will communicate with officers in charge of different sewerage and drainage project in this area. The cellphone numbers will be obtained from the residents and the internet. The telephone interview will take ten minutes for each call due to time constraints. The second will be a face-to-face interview with residents. The face-to-face meeting will take place between the resident and the researcher. Further, there will be an observation. The researcher will walk to areas affected to witnesses the damages and take notes on the resource available to rectify the situation. The last method will be a content review. The content review will incorporate readings of different articles and analyzing the opinions of various authors concerning the issues at hand.
Ethics
The researcher will have ethical guidelines to ensure that the project was carried out in an ethical manner. First, there will be consent forms which the participants will read and fill before taking part in the project. Further, the participants will be granted autonomy, and they will at their wish, participate or withdraw from the study. Also, the participants will be emailed the consent forms a week before the project to allow them time to read and comprehend the objectives, aims as well as the significance of the study.
Analysis, results, and evaluation
Poor Drainage system in the Area
There are different causes of flooding at St Albans Queens based on the results from the data collected and responses from the residents and project managers. The first cause is the poor drainage that is vulnerable to heavy rainfall in the area. Most residents claim that during heavy rains, the water rises quickly and fills the buildings. According to the experts, the heavy rains cause flooding due to high water tables and poor drainage system at the area ( Talbot et al., 2018). As a result of the poor drainage system, the rainwater has no clear path and direction to follow thus, floods in flat areas. Another reason is the high water table in the area. According to different articles, the authors assert that the high water table coupled with poor drainage at St Albans Queens is factors that directly cause flooding at this area. The high water table causes water to seep through the basements and walls when there is heavy rain. Further, the high water table implies that when there is a slight rainfall, the water quickly rises above the sea level and thus floods the area.
Poorly maintained sewerage system
The next factor is the poor sewerage system in the area. At St Albans Queens, there is an underground sewer system that should allow water to pass to destined regions. According to reports from different articles, residents, and experts, the sewer system in this area is poor and has been the primary cause of flooding in this area. First, many sewerage lines are clogged to a level where water cannot pass through the lines ( This south Queens neighborhood is getting necessary sewer work after recent flooding issues - QNS.com. 2019). As a result, there are no clear ways which allow water to pass when there is heavy rainfall. The water then floods the flat areas causing a lot of chaos to the residents. Further, the residents cite poor maintenance of the sewerage system in this area. Many authors also raise a similar issue in different articles. In most cases, there is poor maintenance of the sewer system whereby there are a lot of overgrown grasses in lines where the water should be passing. This thus results in flooding.
Outcomes
Different side effects come with underground flooding at St Albans Queens. For instance, many people lose properties such as cars when there during its floods. Further, the floods come with a different waterborne disease that affects the residents. Also, there is disruption of the normal duty when there is flooding as many people are forced to stay inside the houses . Lastly, people, as well as the government, spend a lot of money due to flooding.
Remedies
Currently, there are a lot of activities projects costing billions of money to rectify and creates a sewer system that can help reduce the flood in this area. In the year 2014, the mayor de Blasio and Councilman Donovan Richards D-Laurelton recognized this issue and came up with multimillion projects to rectify the sewer system within the next ten years. The Commissioners Vincent Sapienza of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and Lorraine Grillo of the Department of Design and Construction who visited the area made a remarkable comment. He claimed that “the Shovels in the ground in southeast Queens mean we are one step closer to a true drainage system and some peace of mind for residents and businesses” (Mayor invests $1.9 billion to upgrade failing sewer systems that cause flooding in southeast Queens – QNS 2019). Such a drainage system is critical since it will help the business owners continue their profit-generating activities, decrease the financial burden and also decrease risks of waterborne disease in the area. The project success will be determined by the degree at which the objectives are achieved.
References
Mayor invests $1.9 billion to upgrade failing sewer systems that cause flooding in southeast Queens - QNS.com. (2019). Retrieved from https://qns.com/story/2018/10/25/mayor-invests-1-9-billion-upgrade-failing-sewer-systems-southeast-queens/
Taccari, M. L., & van der Meij, R. (2016). Study of the effect of burrows of European Badgers (Meles meles) on the initiation of breaching in dikes. In E3S Web of Conferences (Vol. 7, p. 03001). EDP Sciences.
Talbot, C. J., Bennett, E. M., Cassell, K., Hanes, D. M., Minor, E. C., Paerl, H., ... & Xenopoulos, M. A. (2018). The impact of flooding on aquatic ecosystem services. Biogeochemistry , 141 (3), 439-461.
This south Queens neighborhood is getting necessary sewer work after recent flooding issues - QNS.com. (2019). Retrieved from https://qns.com/story/2018/06/07/south-queens-neighborhood-getting-necessary-sewer-work-recent-flooding-issues/
Voloshkina, O., & Julia, B. (2017). Environmental safety of territory due to the critical processes of flooding.
