Floods Trivia
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45 free Floods trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Floods trivia for weather watchers, geography students and anyone who has wondered what a '100-year flood' actually means. The quiz starts with the science: areal, river, coastal and flash flooding, the six-hour rule, why levees make things worse, the diseases that follow the water, and why the ancient civilisations of the Nile and Yellow River depended on rivers bursting their banks. The middle rounds cover the great disasters: the 1931 China floods, often ranked the deadliest natural disaster in history, the 1887 Yellow River flood, the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 that made Herbert Hoover's name and fed the Great Migration, the South Fork Dam that drowned Johnstown, the 1953 North Sea flood that killed 1,836 in the Netherlands and 307 in England, Lynmouth, the 1993 Midwest flood, and Pakistan's monsoon catastrophes of 2010 and 2022. Later questions turn to the engineering answers, the Delta Works, the Zuiderzee's Afsluitdijk and the Thames Barrier, plus the flood myths of Gilgamesh, Deucalion and Genesis, and the January day in 1919 when 2.3 million gallons of molasses swept through Boston at 35 mph. Questions run from easy to expert and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our natural disasters, weather and rivers quizzes.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Arizona slot canyon did a 1997 flash flood kill a group of tourists?
Antelope Canyon
Antelope Canyon: hardly any rain fell there that day, but runoff from a thunderstorm upstream funnelled into the narrow slot.
Q 02Which adjective describes flooding from rain pooling on saturated or frozen ground, not a river overflowing?
areal
Areal flooding: on flat ground such as floodplains and endorheic basins, rain arrives faster than saturated or frozen soil can absorb it or the land can drain it, so water pools in place.
Q 03Which US city suffered three '500-year' floods in three straight years?
Houston
Houston: a '500-year' flood only has a 1 in 500 chance each year, so another can follow soon after, as Hurricane Harvey's did in 2017.
Q 04Which crop do farmers grow in fields they deliberately keep flooded?
rice
Rice: paddies usually stay flooded until about a week before harvest, which makes lowland rice a very thirsty crop.
Q 05Which waterborne disease often spreads after floods taint drinking water with sewage?
cholera
Cholera: in 1854 John Snow traced a London outbreak to one contaminated street pump, and local officials removed its handle.
Q 06Periodic flooding sustained ancient peoples along the Tigris, Euphrates, Indus and which other river?
the Nile
The Nile's yearly flood no longer reaches Egypt's fields: since 1970 the Aswan High Dam has held it back, trapping the silt that once enriched them.
Q 07'Overland flooding' in the flat Red River Valley affects Minnesota, North Dakota and which Canadian province?
Manitoba
Manitoba: the Red River flows north into Lake Winnipeg, and its worst floods come in spring, as snowmelt runs downstream into river ice.
Q 08A 1963 landslide into which Italian dam's reservoir sent a wave that destroyed a whole town?
the Vajont Dam
The Vajont Dam itself stayed almost intact, but the water that surged over it flattened the town of Longarone below.
Q 09The 1931 floods hit which two major cities on the Yangtze?
Wuhan and Nanjing
Wuhan and Nanjing, then the capital, were both inundated in summer 1931; the government estimated 25 million people were affected, and four Yangtze stations recorded over 600 mm of rain in a single month.
Q 10Which river, nicknamed 'China's Sorrow', burst its dikes in 1887 in one of history's deadliest floods?
the Yellow River
The Yellow River carries so much silt that its bed has built up above the surrounding plain, so a broken dike spills the river across the land.
Q 11Which rock band reworked Memphis Minnie's blues song about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927?
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin: 'When the Levee Breaks' closes its fourth album, with John Bonham's drums recorded by microphones hung above a stairwell.
Q 12Whose handling of the 1927 Mississippi flood as commerce secretary helped propel him to the presidency?
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover ran the relief effort, and when abuses in the refugee camps came to light, he named Robert Moton to investigate them.
Q 13The Johnstown Flood of 1889 was caused by the failure of which dam upstream of the Pennsylvania town?
the South Fork Dam
Q 21Which port city's harbour do the giant floating gates of the Maeslantkering protect from storm surges?
Rotterdam
Rotterdam: the barrier must not hinder ships on the port's main waterway, so its two gates sit on the banks until a surge threatens.
Q 22Which children's novel includes the tale of a Dutch boy who plugged a leaking dike with his finger?
Hans Brinker
Hans Brinker: in the novel the dike hero is a nameless boy from a story read aloud in an English classroom, not Hans himself.
Q 23The deadly Lynmouth Flood of August 1952 followed a night of extreme rain on which upland?
Exmoor
Exmoor: some nine inches of rain fell on the moor in a day, and it poured into the East and West Lyn rivers, which meet at Lynmouth.
The South Fork Dam had been weakened by the club that owned its lake, which lowered the dam and put fish screens across its spillway.
Q 14The 1889 Johnstown Flood became the first major disaster relief effort for which organization?
The American Red Cross
The American Red Cross: Clara Barton ran the relief in person and stayed in Johnstown for five months amid the wreckage.
Q 15The Great Molasses Flood of January 1919 struck which American city?
Boston
Boston: the smell of molasses is said to have lingered in the North End for decades afterwards.
Q 16Roughly how fast did the wave of the 1919 Great Molasses Flood travel?
35 mph
35 mph: the molasses first surged fast enough to sweep people up, then thickened as it cooled, trapping those it caught.
Q 17Thailand's 2011 floods caused a global shortage of which computer part?
Hard disk drives
Hard disk drives: Thailand made about a quarter of the world's supply, and floodwater swamped factories, including Western Digital's.
Q 18Which Dutch province lost the most lives in the 1953 North Sea flood?
Zeeland
Zeeland: the last dike gap, at Ouwerkerk, was closed with four concrete caissons that now house the flood museum.
Q 19The 1953 flood killed 58 people at which low-lying spot in the Thames estuary in Essex?
Canvey Island
Canvey Island had to be evacuated after the flood, and the island was later given a new sea wall.
Q 20Which system of dams and storm-surge barriers did the Netherlands build after the 1953 flood?
the Delta Works
The Delta Works' largest barrier, across the Eastern Scheldt, was changed from a solid dam to gates that normally stay open, so the estuary keeps its tides and sea life.
Q 24The Great Flood of 1993 in the American Midwest ran along the Mississippi and which other great river?
the Missouri
The Missouri and Mississippi flooded so badly that Valmeyer, Illinois, rebuilt the whole town on higher ground outside the floodplain.
Q 25Which UN Secretary-General called Pakistan's 2010 floods the worst disaster he had ever seen?
Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon: even after his visit, the UN had raised only a small fraction of the emergency aid it had asked for.
Q 26Melting glaciers contributed to the 2022 Pakistan floods, causing glacial flooding in which northern region?
Gilgit-Baltistan
Gilgit-Baltistan, home to thousands of Karakoram and Himalayan glaciers, saw glacial lake outburst floods after the 2022 heatwave; one destroyed the Hassanabad bridge in Hunza in May.
Q 27In the Atrahasis epic, which god secretly warns his priest of the flood and tells him to build a boat?
Enki
Enki had sworn to keep the gods' plan secret, so he spoke his warning to the wall of his priest's reed hut instead.
Q 28The Greek counterpart of Noah, who survived Zeus's flood with his wife Pyrrha, was called what?
Deucalion
Deucalion: after the flood, he and Pyrrha repeopled the earth by throwing stones behind them, which turned into people.
Q 29Deforestation and the removal of which water-absorbing habitat increase flooding?
wetlands
Wetlands: more than 8,000 acres of them along Massachusetts's Charles River have been set aside to hold floodwater and protect the land downstream.
Q 30Climate change raises flood risk via sea-level rise and by intensifying which global process?
the water cycle
The water cycle intensifies because a warmer atmosphere holds about 7% more moisture per degree Celsius, so extreme rain events become more frequent and heavier.