Slashdot Mirror
Protecting At-Risk Cities From Rising Seas
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that with about 10 million people in England and Wales living in flood risk areas, rising sea levels and more storms could mean that parts of at-risk cities will need to be surrendered to protect homes and businesses, and that 'radical thinking' is needed to develop sea defenses that can cope with the future threats. 'If we act now, we can adapt in such a way that will prevent mass disruption and allow coastal communities to continue to prosper,' says Ruth Reed, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. 'But the key word is "now."' Changing sea levels is not a new phenomenon. In the Netherlands, for example, with 40% of its surface under sea level, water management and water defense have been practiced since time immemorial; creating mounds and dykes, windmills, canals with locks and sluices, the Delta Works and the Afsluitdijk, all to keep the water out. Similar solutions to protect British cities are based on three themes (PDF): moving 'critical infrastructure' and housing to safer ground, allowing the water into parts of the city; building city-wide sea defenses to ensure water does not enter the existing urban area; and extending the existing coastline and building out onto the water (using stilts, floating structures and/or land reclamation)."
When you're talking about coastal areas as densely populated as much of England's are, 90 years is about the right amount of time to plan. Short-sighted, "ahhh, we'll worry about it when it happens" thinking is responsible for most of the death and destruction from natural disasters of any sort.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
People can't think in terms of replacing cities because the idea that cities are changing instead of truly permanent is completely outside what they are taught. They cling to cities they should simply abandon and bulldoze (Detroit, the below-sea-level areas of New Orleans) for no logical reason.
Cities are cheap to replace, there is plenty of room, and the way to get better cities (especially in the US) is to smash old infrastructure instead of trying to save it.
Rising sea levels could force healthy changes to current urban areas by making them untenable.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Found this after I posted...
It has some nice graphs of actual sea level change vs various IPCC predictions and says in part...
"... I conclude that the ongoing debate about future sea level rise is entirely appropriate. The fact that the IPCC has been unsuccessful in predicting sea level rise, does not mean that things are worse or better, but simply that scientists clearly do not have a handle on this issue and are unable to predict sea level changes on a decadal scale. The lack of predictive accuracy does not lend optimism about the prospects for accuracy on the multi-decadal scale. Consider that the 2007 IPCC took a pass on predicting near term sea level rise, choosing instead to focus 90 years out (as far as I am aware, anyone who knows differently, please let me know)."
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
New Orleans did it badly. The Corps of Engineers had been warning for a very, very long time that the levees were in terrible shape (and in many cases poorly sited) but everyone ignored the warnings until they were illustrated in dramatic fashion.
How long a time? Well, my great-grandfather, William Elam, was one of the leading hydrological engineers of his day; he wrote "Speeding Floods to the Sea" which was pretty much the standard textbook on flood control on the Mississippi for the mid-twentieth century. And he warned about a Katrina-type scenario then, in 1946, and probably well before that. The knowledge was there to fix the problem. What was lacking, for decades, was the political will.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
We will earn shitloads of money in the coming decades, building dikes and other stuff for other countries. If I had to choose a study now I would go to Delft, where all the relevant education concerning that is given.
-- Cheers!
I'd rather fall in the water than fall down the stairs.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
3. Go and visit the Thames Barrier. It's very impressive.
What about sewers? Much of London's sewer system is more than 150 years old and will last for at least that long again thanks to good engineering and great foresight by the Victorian planners. If we had to rebuild our sewer system every 90 years, we would be spending a great deal more on our water bills than we do at present.