God's Promise to Not Destroy the Earth by Flood Again

The passage at the end of the flood narrative where god makes a covenant with noah and says, i'm never going to do this again, that should be understood is a promise that god will never send us a global flood. The author of gene s was aware that there had been these big floods, or at least one big flood, and he wasn't aware of anybody am outside. So we've got god's promise on that. But how are we supposed to understand god's promise to not destroy the earth by flood again if there was never a gulf global flood? Mary writes on facebook, loves seeing all the threads of the flood story in various myths from different cultures,. As well as