Scientific American: U.S. flood protection inadequate

"Nearly 70 percent of the roughly 30,000 miles of levees in the U.S. are not trusted by government flood officials to hold back flood waters," reports the Scientific American. The problem is that very few were built to protect against the powerful storms expected by climate scientists and the flooding that will accompany them. Now federal flood officials are recalibrating the way they view the risk to communities lying behind these walls. Government officials say it's driven by better scientific methods used to measure precise flood hazards.

With the threat of high risk of flooding, there are new requirements to build homes and businesses that are resilient to flood damage.