Floods and Droughts in Asia, Europe, and America

Abstract

This chapter introduces flood and drought through the understanding of the water cycle. In addition to the water cycle, we consider the energy cycle. The floods and droughts have strong regional and seasonal characteristics. The causes of the unbalanced water conditions can occur under the various meteorological phenomena, which have strong regional and seasonal varieties. For an understanding of the cause of floods and drought, we first consider the geographical characteristics of the floods and droughts. At the same time, we focus on the spatial and temporal time-scale of the flood or drought. Moreover, because floods and drought can be considered as excess and shortage of water, respectively, they are opposite. However, their spatial and temporal scales are asymmetric.