Protecting At-Risk Cities From Rising Seas 243
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)."
Re:Sleepwalking? (Score:1, Informative)
If you've got a healthy sex life, you should already be wearing water wings to bed. You'll be fine.
Re:It's How We Are (Score:3, Informative)
For some of us, that's a contradiction in terms. Not everyone can feel comfortable in a rat warr..err, "high density urban area".
Re:Yeah, right (Score:4, Informative)
That's hardly a strange name. Not if you know that the Dutch have a seperate "vowel" which is i and j combined (ij) and sounds almost the same as "y" in "why". Do the Dutch word dijk becomes the English word "dyke". The word "afsluit" is equivalent to the English words "close down". In essence it means "a dyke that closes down" and it's a reference to the sea inlet called the Zuidersea (or South Sea) and turned into a lake. Yes, the South Sea was originally the other connected to the "North Sea" until we pacified its rough waters. It's a source of engineering pride for us.
Re:Hold Up Here (Score:3, Informative)
From this article (by a unabashed pro-global warming person), the estimate is 3 feet by 2100.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0323_060323_global_warming.html [nationalgeographic.com]
"By the end of this century the seas may be three feet (one meter) higher than they are today, according to a pair of studies that appear in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science."
This other pro global warming site has a different figure (backed up by several other sites)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11049-major-climate-change-report-looks-set-to-alarm.html [newscientist.com]
"the new report is believed to predict that sea-levels will rise by between 28 centimetres and 43 cm by 2100" (16 inches).
Personally, I think building properties on the edge of the ocean and subsidence from pumping groundwater are more significant to the problem.
In 99% of the globe, raising sea levels 16" is not going to significantly change the coastline.
Re:Yeah, right (Score:1, Informative)
"Offshutdike" is more like it, if you want to translate literally.
"Shutoffdike" is probably the best translation without being literal.
Re:Interesting Novel idea (Score:4, Informative)
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.
That idea in the 1950s and '60s was called "urban renewal," and it led to entire neighborhoods of solid old buildings being knocked down and replaced with shoddy crap. Not to mention that, you know, people lived there, and the effects on them were pretty destructive. Ever thought about why "living in the projects" is considered to be a bad thing? There may occasionally be times when "bulldoze it all away" is the right solution -- sections of Detroit, as you mention, are largely deserted and probably unsalvageable -- but such times are very much the exception.
Re:Selling the lie (Score:3, Informative)
ah. The telegraph. A beacon of science in a medieval world? And an article from Dr Mörner? you say ? this person perhaps ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils-Axel_M%C3%B6rner#Views_on_dowsing [wikipedia.org] ?
Re:Interesting Novel idea (Score:3, Informative)
Discovery channel in the 1990's ran a series of worst-case disasters like mega-earthquakes, mega-volcanoes, mega-tornadoes, mega-whatever... One of the episodes was a what-if scenario of a hurricane landing on New Orleans. Even then it was just brushed off as a one in two hundred years event.
Re:Hold Up Here (Score:3, Informative)
That New Scientist article is from 2007. Here is one from July 2009: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327151.300-sea-level-rise-its-worse-than-we-thought.html?page=1 [newscientist.com] .
In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast a sea level rise of between 19 and 59 centimetres by 2100, but this excluded "future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow".
If this trend continues, Rignot thinks sea level rise will exceed 1 metre by 2100. So understanding why Greenland and Antarctica are already losing ice faster than predicted is crucial to improving our predictions. The main reason for the increase is the speeding up of glaciers that drain the ice sheets into the sea.
Re:Recommendations for visitors to London (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Well, telling them doesn't work (Score:3, Informative)
Property searches used to only include checking title, open planning applications and mining. Only last month [vic.gov.au] did the land registry link up with the Environment Agency to provide flood risk information. It is still quite basic, apparently doing no more than linking a postcode to a situation on this map [environmen...ncy.gov.uk]. Few people read (or are even given) the results of searches, they just rely on their lawyer pointing things out.
Many of the major floods seen in the news here in recent years have been extraordinary stuff, which would be classed as low risk category anyway. There's an article on the BBC [bbc.co.uk] talks about that in relation to Cockermouth (yes we do have very silly names for places in Britain), while the #1 comment there has a very important point: land use is extremely significant and isn't factored into the flood risk maps. The flooding a couple of years ago in Hull was actually blamed in large part on people paving their driveways, resulting in massive run-off with minimal water soaking away. This is a massive contributor to flooding, to such an extent that "we have identified areas at tops of hills that are at risk of surface water flooding" [independent.co.uk].
For what it's worth you will have increased premiums if you live in a flood plain. That is, if you thought to ask for flooding cover. Usually if there is extensive damage to a flooded property the insurance company won't pay out if it happens a second time, or only above a massive excess. This doesn't seem to cause a problem when it comes to sell property - unlike cars where you are obliged to state if an insurance company has written off the car (though nobody does, which is why you should always get your own insurer to check for you, though no, nobody does that either).