The paper "Environmental Effects of Metropolitan Growth on Water Resources" discusses the effects that development has on water resources. It includes several problems that either do affect Colorado Springs or will in the future.
             According to the paper urbanization may increase the amount of precipitation over a city by 10 to 30%. This is due to the extra heat produced by cities, heat that is stored in concrete surfaces, and the suspended particles that are by-products of cities. This increases the danger of flooding in a city because the natural drainages in and around a city may not be able to hold the extra water.
             One of the most important problems is the large amount of impermeable surfaces in Colorado Springs. Rooftops, parking lots, roads and any other paved surface causes rainfall and snowmelt to become runoff since it has no where else to go. Also most urban areas including Colorado Springs have a drainage system designed to drain water out of the city as quickly as possible. This shortens the amount of time between the rainfall and the peak flow in the streams in the drainage. This along with the increase of water will cause streams to flood over their banks more often than they would in an undeveloped area.
             Colorado Springs also attempts to move water outside of the city by improving stream flow. This is most often done by lining the stream channels with concrete. This may help move the water out of the city but it also may cause more flooding danger downstream from the city. Besides this, it also destroys the natural habitat of the stream by making it nothing more than a concrete lined ditch.
             Colorado Springs has many buildings and other structures that are built in the floodplains of streams. During a flood these will cause water to rise higher by displacing it. Also bridges built over streams will act as a dam by backing water up behind them. Both of these will cause floodwaters to rise abov...