Well, I love a rainy day! Send in your photos of the rain, the runoff, the height of the latest river and/or stream, or just people getting wet! Send in the measurements of the rain inches per hour, inches per day, inches per storm, and the name of your town, city, etc.
Today it is raining in the northeast US. A big coastal storm which is good for the trees and flowers and cleans the air we breathe.
Check out the way of the water flow depending on the development status. It is really an interesting diagram. Water Cycle in an Urban Setting is from a really nice EPA booklet.
From this, you should be able to see that as we continue to change the landscape and build more and more impervious surfaces, less water can penetrate the ground. Where the water penetrate into the ground, it can be filtered naturally and will slowly end up in a water body. Where the water runs off over the impervious surface (because it can not seep into the ground), it picks up dirt and stuff along the way, and enters the water body faster and hotter than the original unchanged landscape.
We can do something about this, if those who want to change the landscape understand that there is a way to do this without harming our ecology.
Let me know what you think about this.
