Assistant Professor Sally Thompson, a member of the CEE Environmental Engineering faculty, commented on the recent catastrophic flooding in Boulder, Colorado and what it can teach us.
Boulder re-enforced lessons that have been drummed into people before: the folly of building on flood plains, for example. But, Thompson points out, development that already exists—well, it already exists. The likelihood of removing shopping malls and housing tracts from areas where they have sat for years or decades is extremely remote, flood risk notwithstanding. (Excerpt).
See Flood fate: What Colorado's disaster can teach us (Cal Alumni Association)