Levee's. Dikes. Dredged channels. Concrete walls. Dams.....
Water as always (even pre-human) seeks it's own level.
When feeble human ants try to control water it is based on human logic , and on flood levels of short historic time period.
More than one well engineered/controlled river has ignored mans will.
Delta regions have rich deposits of sediment from.....flooding. Historic flooding from beyond those flood levels (hundred year high is one used to set up for failure) in places a river may not even flood any more. Rivers do move main channels about overtime.
"new"/young rivers run a fairly straight course depending on topography. That factors in mainsteam volume and speed and flooding potential.
Many corps of engineers would have a river run straight...
As a river ages it begins to meander. And when old a river can have all kinds of interesting oxbows , tremendous turns and loops...
Which is just nature doing her thing.
Add a tremendous occasional input of water volume and it will be the water , not the river that decides where water goes.
Don't build a home in a delta. But humans do. Again it is a rich growing region. And where does a delta end? Based on what data?
Flooding and fire brings change to nature. Where humans are not fighting it (often as "victims") , flooding and fire , even volcano's add a chance of new life through changes or even creation of soil. And where soil exists , enrich that soil.
For thousands of years in your and my state natives traveled along river delta's and riverine areas. Due to the rich flora and fauna made possible by .....Water.
Water seeking it's own level.
Obviously the natives did not sleep in flood waters. Did they know something we don't? Or did they rather act logically around potential flood zones?
There remain mounds they created along the river near me.
A river that modern man has tried to tame with dams and it does still have high water in the spring.
And has flooded out homes despite human "control" time and again after failure.
Yet those mounds still exist...
