A new Purdue University study has found that controlling urban sprawl and planting more trees are the keys to reducing water
runoff that causes urban flooding.
The study by Purdue forestry and natural resources professor Bryan Pijanowski suggests that slowing the rate of urban sprawl
would be the most effective way to reduce or control water runoff that leads to flooding.
Planting trees and forested areas near rivers and streams and requiring buffer zones of vegetation between those waterways
and development also could help.
The study used a model to simulate Michigan's Muskegon River watershed runoff rates from 1900 through the present and
forecast them 30 years into the future.
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