Iowa Flooding Caused by People?

Written by lame

In Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog , 3 items about the flooding in Iowa:

it is the Midwest’s 2nd 500-year flood in 15 years (the area I live in had its own 500-year flood last winter). Is this a problem of data or does it raise "the question of whether the floods were, in part, human-caused"
"Part of the flooding is due to the draining of wetlands for farming purposes. As nature’s natural buffers against flooding are drained and filled to provide room for more farmland, run-off and flooding are bound to increase. Furthermore, as more levees are built to protect more valuable farmland and new developments, flood waters are pushed out of the former areas they were allowed to spread out in and forced into river channels behind the new levees. Even higher levees must then be constructed to hold back the increased volume of water they are asked to contain. " (he cites this from a Washington Post article)
"The heaviest types of rains–those likely to cause flooding–have increased in recent years … global warming theory has long predicted an increase in heavy precipitation events.