Floods and Droughts

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1879, to provide a per­manent Federal agency to perform the systematic and scientific "classification of the public lands, and examination of the geologic structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain." Surface-water activities of the USGS in Kansas are part of the Survey’s Water Mission Area’s...

Johnson County, a suburban part of the Kansas City metropolitan area, is one of the most populated counties in Kansas with 544,000 people in 2010, a 21 percent increase in population since 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Located in northeastern Kansas, about one-half of the county is urban. Urban, industrial, and agricultural land uses affect the quality of streams and lakes in the...

Droughts affect more people in North America than any other natural hazard. The cost of losses due to drought in the United States averages $8-9 billion every year. In Kansas, the droughts of the 1930s and 1950s resulted in severe economic impacts that included crop losses and damage, high livestock mortality rates, tree loss due to disease, damage to fish habitat due to low streamflows, and...