I am talking about large endeavor costing billions of dollars and a hell of a lot of manpower, but in the end, it would save money, property and even lives. It might seem impossible, but bigger projects and endeavors have been done.
In general, I am suggesting that they come up with some big way of catching a lot of pre flood water from the source, or as near as possible before it get polluted. Create large reservoirs and even man made lakes and such to store the water, prevent or lesson flooding and help reduce drought and wildfires.
It looks like we will be going to experience some snow tomorrow on the way to Whistler. Rain most of the rest of the way. At least we should beat the fires. Just have to watch out for landslides and such
Here they do quite a bit of fire prevention ..
Well not so much prevention as control I guess
From maintaining clear cut fire lines to control burns ( once in a while those cause some wildfires) and such..
Doesn't stop it but helps trying to keep it contained .
Admittedly I don't know much about that stuff so mountain terrain may not be helped with those tactics
The problem with floods & droughts is that we don't like them, even though they've always been part of the land. So the agri industry drained the wetlands and built drainage ditches to get any water off the land quickly.
Now flood waters move way faster than ever before becaus ethere are less marsh areas to contain it. Another negative side effect is that the fertlizers & chemicals all end up in the rivers too.
Your suggestion wouldn't work, you can't hold back a flood. But here they are talking about restoring wetlands and digging out deeper sloughs to hold more flood waters for when it gets dry, like the previous few years.