Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the passage only.

When a city floods, the response is familiar: pumps are hired, drains are cleared, and a committee is announced. The following year the same streets go under. The drains being cleared were laid for a city a fraction of the present size, and nobody has surveyed where the water actually goes now that the tanks and low ground that once held it have been built over. Clearing a drain that is too small to begin with buys a season. Knowing which catchment feeds which street, and which construction closed which outfall, is what would let the money be spent where it changes the outcome. That survey has not been done in most cities, and it is cheaper than one year of emergency pumping.

Which one of the following statements best reflects the most logical and rational implication conveyed by the passage?