Floods are an awfully hit or miss source of water to rely on. Building a nationwide system of pipes that may not see use for decades at a time would be more than just a little prohibitively expensive.
Here in SW Pa, we have a lot of water .... and the Mississippi can be tapped, and the Ohio
Look ... I'm not saying it's the magic pill ... but it IS an idea I think engineers could discuss
The problem is gravity. Building the “pipes” is nothing compared to building (and powering!) the pumps. And the volumes that it would really take to make a difference would be mind-boggling.
“Floods are an awfully hit or miss source of water to rely on.”
Desert civilizations have built cisterns for thousands of years. But California builds super fast trains that will be limited to about 50mph for technical reasons and they don’t go anywhere people want to go. California needs to die so we can start over.
One brainstorm was to pipe the Missouri river to all points west.