The Yellow River in China, often called "China's Sorrow," flooded in 1931 and killed 3.7 million people, the most deaths due to a flood ever recorded in history. Although the Chinese government has built numerous dams, China still suffers many deaths when major rivers flood. As recently as 1996, a flood of the Yangtze River killed two thousand people.

In Western countries where more resources can be invested in prediction and preparation, death tolls are normally much lower. During a massive 1995 flood in the Netherlands, for example, thirty people drowned but two hundred thousand were evacuated. Diane Raines Ward, in her book Water Wars, describes the high-tech flood management techniques employed by the Dutch during that flood:

Holland was as ready as it could be. Military planes with infrared cameras flew low to identify trouble spots [in the dikes.] Dutch soldiers worked alongside civilian volunteers to reinforce...