Kingwood
Floodways act as buffer for a river or stream that consists of extra land used to help drain the system during times of excess water. Kingwood has two major streams, along the southern and eastern border of the super neighborhood, that flow into Lake Houston which correspond with the location of the floodway. Two maps are presented here, one being elevation shown with flow direction arrows, the other being the 100-year floodplain along with the floodway. The flow direction map shows that the arrows generally trend towards the floodway, which then supports the existence of the floodplain right along the floodway. During times of excess water, the water will run off into the floodway until it is overwhelmed and fills in the residing floodplain.
Kingwood consists of many of the soils spread across the northern Houston area such as the Splendora Urban Land Complex unit. Most of these units share the trait that they are a fine to very fine sandy loam. Runoff class widely varies between soil units while other traits such as a low depth to the water table are commonly shared. The accompanying pie chart shows that roughly half of the Kingwood area consists of 3 units, the Sorter Urban Land Complex, the Splendora Urban Land Complex, and water. Both soil units within this half consists of poorly drained, sandy loams. Larger units within Kingwood, such as the Kenefick unit, exist with a well-drained soil profile but most of the soils in the area are unideal for water relief.
The Kingwood super neighborhood is well known for being a well populated suburban community. It’s unsurprising to see so much land used for residential and commercial purposes. Agricultural land such as D2 only appears surrounding residential and commercial areas. The impact of residential and commercial land use is the increased urbanization that occurs. Urbanization tends to increase the likelihood of flooding as it affects multiple factors such as having a negative impact on soil properties and decreased vegetation. A well log in the Kingwood area measures a subsidence rate of 0.32, which is near the middle of the data set. Houston’s history of removing ground water along with the need for water in an urban area is likely the cause of subsidence, although the mild rate suggests that it may not be the most threatening factor of flooding.
