--- title: Five Best: Why America Can’t Figure Out Flood Prevention description: Why America can't figure out flood prevention, growing virtual plants could help farmers boost their crops and more. canonical: https://time.com/4920067/why-america-cant-figure-out-flood-prevention/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-29T16:00:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:31.997Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why America Can’t Figure Out Flood Prevention og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4920067/why-america-cant-figure-out-flood-prevention/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why America Can’t Figure Out Flood Prevention twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Why America Can’t Figure Out Flood Prevention by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 29, 2017 4:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 29, 2017 4:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Why can’t America figure out flood prevention?**](https://www.citylab.com/environment/2017/08/flood-prevention-katrina-new-orleans-houston-harvey/538185/) By Jed Horne in _Citylab_ **2\.** [**Growing virtual plants could help farmers boost their crops.**](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/growing-virtual-plants-could-help-farmers-boost-their-crops/) By Leslie Nemo in _Scientific American_ **3\.** [**Pancreatic cancer is hard to diagnose and has a low survival rate. This app helps catch it early.**](https://www.washington.edu/news/2017/08/28/new-app-uses-smartphone-selfies-to-screen-for-pancreatic-cancer/) By Jennifer Langston at the _University of Washington_ **4\.** [**This innovative program will get more marginalized workers into jobs while helping businesses access capital.**](http://www.ozy.com/immodest-proposal/an-easy-way-to-encourage-businesses-to-hire-marginalized-workers/80209) By Neil Parmar in _Ozy_ **5\.** [**Armed with artificial intelligence, these drones are spotting sharks before they reach swimmers.**](https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/28/16213416/drones-australia-shark-attack-ai-little-ripper) By Amar Toor in the _Verge_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4920067/why-america-cant-figure-out-flood-prevention/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4920067/why-america-cant-figure-out-flood-prevention/"},"headline":"Why America Can’t Figure Out Flood Prevention","datePublished":"2017-08-29T16:00:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:31.997Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4920067/why-america-cant-figure-out-flood-prevention/","keywords":["Five Best Ideas","Jobs","Innovation","Farming","Floods"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/five-best-ideas/","name":"Five Best Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4920067/why-america-cant-figure-out-flood-prevention/","name":"Why America Can’t Figure Out Flood Prevention"}}]}] ```