River Flooding Isn’t a Disaster—It’s Nature Doing Its Job

Floods have ravaged homes, lives, and landscapes—but what causes rivers to overflow, and what’s the real story behind these disasters?

In recent years, we’ve witnessed devastating images of destruction caused by floods—entire neighborhoods submerged, homes swept away, lives lost.

In this context, we’re talking specifically about river flooding. When rivers overflow their banks, the consequences can be catastrophic. But what lies behind these powerful events?

What’s the real story of floods—and why do they happen in the first place?

Rethinking Floods: The Problem Isn’t Water—It’s Where It Goes

Before we can truly understand floods, we need to separate two things: the flood itself and the damage it causes.
For centuries, human civilization has fought against flooding. Seen as a threat, a force to be conquered, we poured our hopes into technology, believing we could outsmart and control Mother Nature. But in many cases, our attempts to block floods have backfired—amplifying the very destruction we sought to avoid.

The first change must be in mindset.
We can’t “win” against nature. We can’t stop floods from happening. What we can do is learn to live with them—wisely, respectfully, and in balance.

Floods are natural. They are essential.
Our goal shouldn’t be to eliminate them, but to prevent them from reaching places they don’t belong—like our homes and cities.
Ironically, we must allow floods to return to where they do belong: the natural floodplains.

Flooding these areas serves two crucial purposes:

It reduces pressure on our built infrastructure, sparing human settlements from disaster.
It nourishes ecosystems, sustaining biodiversity and offering what scientists call ecosystem services—the hidden benefits nature provides for free, from filtering water to supporting pollinators.

We’ll explore those benefits more deeply in future posts.
But for now, remember: Floods are not the enemy. Mismanagement is.

Understanding the Nuance: When Water Becomes a Disaster vs. a Natural Process

The terms flood and flooding may seem interchangeable, but they highlight different aspects of the same phenomenon. A flood is usually used to describe a specific event that causes damage—it’s sudden, disruptive, and often tied to destruction of homes, infrastructure, or landscapes. When we hear about a flood, we think of a catastrophe: water rushing into towns, sweeping away roads, and leaving devastation behind. It’s closely linked to emergency situations and aftermath.

In contrast, flooding refers more to the natural process or condition of water spreading into areas it normally wouldn’t occupy. It can be gradual or seasonal, and while it may lead to damage, the word itself isn’t inherently negative. For example, we might talk about seasonal flooding in river deltas or wetlands, acknowledging it as part of a predictable, natural cycle. So, while flood often emphasizes the impact and consequences, flooding focuses on the presence and movement of water as part of a broader environmental pattern.

Natural just as a rain

River flooding indeed is a natural phenomenon. Just as rain falls and ice and snow melts, rivers will flood and this story is as old as the planet (from the point where water condensed enough to start hydrologic cycle).

There are many types of river flooding, depending on the geology relief, climate etc.

Typical flooding is completely normal for lowland slow rivers with huge floodplains. The river swells with water and eventually, there is so much water that it must spill across the river banks.

See this picture:

This is Kopački rit, the huge floodplain of the Danube River. During high water, in May or June, mighty Danube spills into the spacious floodplain with reeds, sedges and willow flood forests. This is the normal annual cycle. It is huge retention for floodwater, as surplus water can’t be evaporated so quickly, especially when alluvial underground is already saturated with the water.

This is the Danube River during the flood. Note that water from the main channel not only spills on all sides over the river banks but also entering deep in the floodplain through natural channels (side branches).

Today, much of the floodplains are destroyed and reduced so we have an impression that floods are something unusual, even menacing. So be careful, do not confound natural river flooding with damages from the floods. We can’t stop rains and snowmelt, so we can’t stop natural floods too. But we can adapt and protect from the catastrophes.

Furthermore, after decades of only technical solutions to the flood protection, new approach emerges: let the rivers flood their natural floodplains so people and the infrastructure will be less threatened. In this way, we also keep the biodiversity.

Schematically this is shown here:

Floods are ‘acts of God’. But flood losses are largely acts of man.

GILBERT F. WHITE, prominent American geographer, sometimes termed the “father of floodplain management”.