Abstract
For those looking for a description of what the future may hold for geography vulnerable to sea level rise, The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell is not a bad place to start. Even if its language is overly dramatic in places, it does paint a reasonably accurate picture of what continuing to populate low-lying coastal areas will mean in the not so distant future. The book is valuable as an accessible resource on climate science, readily observable impacts of a warmer and wetter planet, and some of the measures that are being taken (or not) in particularly vulnerable iconic places such as New York, Miami, and Venice, Italy.
The book opens with five chapters that provide a good layman’s level summary of what is going on with climate science, how sea level has fluctuated in the past, and how Miami and its long history of unsustainable development is ground zero in this conversation. As economic losses from tropical storms and hurricanes continue to grow, we only have to look to the overdevelopment of vulnerable coastal areas to realize why. Florida added almost four million people since the beginning of the century with almost 30% of that growth occurring in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. The stakes are enormous. For example, Zillow estimates that a six-foot rise in sea level could inundate one trillion dollars worth of real estate in the United States including one in eight homes in Florida (Rao, 2017). A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims that absent significant action, “global damages from sea-level rise could reach $100 trillion a year by 2100 (Hinkel et al., 2014).” To put this in context, US$1 trillion equates to 4,000,000 homes worth US$250,000 and the estimated gross world product for 2018 is less than US$90 trillion.
He moves from there to two particularly interesting chapters that deal with physical flood defenses. “The Ferrari on the Seafloor” describes the MOSE flood barrier under construction in Venice, the existing Maeslant Barrier that protects Rotterdam, and the Thames barrier that is designed to protect London from storm surge. “Walled Cities” mostly discusses what to do about the wake-up call that New York received with Superstorm Sandy. Some type of floodwall or floodgate is seen as necessary to protect Lower Manhattan but diverting the water from one place only means that it will go somewhere else and the trade-offs are stark. Inundating Staten Island to protect the Financial District will not be universally popular. At the end of the day, although physical barriers are effective in theory, they all run into the knotty problem borne by any physical defense system; “Will it be big/high/strong enough to do its expected job when the time comes?” This dilemma was best summarized by a Dutch engineer who is quoted as saying, “These structures are not about solving the problem—they are about buying time until we figure out how big the problem really is.”
This is the crux of the issue but we remain far from providing the sort of detailed information and forecasts that adaptation policies need. For today’s policy maker, risk manager or design engineer, it is not sufficient to know how much sea level might rise by the end of this century or in two centuries. Will the rise be constant and linear or will it be faster or slower at the beginning or end of the time period? What is the probability that a specific increase will be seen within a specific time frame? What can be done to make a community safer from the next storm event?
Two chapters deal with the critical, but probably less appreciated, impacts of climate change and sea level rise on island nations and the poor, wherever they live. “Island States” makes clear that it is highly likely that significant portions of the Marshall Island chain in the Pacific Ocean will be submerged during this century. This, and the resulting diaspora, will effectively destroy a people and their culture and little, if anything, is being done to prevent it from occurring. “Climate Apartheid” points out that even though both the rich and poor will experience the effects of climate change and sea level rise, losses that are trivial to those of even moderate means can be ruinous to the poor who have so little to begin with. The exposure of the poor is compounded by the fact that they are most often the occupants of marginal lands that are most vulnerable to storm surge and river flooding. Something beyond a nonbinding commitment to constrain global temperature rise is called for, but little of substance has been forthcoming from the global community.
More to the topic of this Symposium Issue, “Weapons of Mass Destruction” addresses the existing and growing threat posed to the Norfolk Naval Base and other military installations in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. “Blue sky flooding” is a common occurrence during a high tide, and during heavy rains the base can be inaccessible. Coupled with subsidence of reclaimed wetlands, rising sea levels pose the very real threat of compromising the military readiness of the Atlantic Fleet, a key element of our national security. Here again, the choices are hard but doing nothing is not an option. New piers have been built, but like the tidal barriers and floodgates discussed earlier, this is just buying time.
These sorts of infrastructure impacts of climate change are not just local either. A recent article in the New York Times noted that major airports around the world are at risk because so many runways are located adjacent to water bodies just a few feet above current sea levels (Tabuchi, 2018). On the military side, in his book, Sea Power (Stavridas, 2017), retired Admiral James Stavridis devoted an entire chapter to the Arctic Ocean, the shrinking polar ice cap, and the implications for security and global trade of an open water passage between Asia and Europe. This passage is mostly under the control of Russia who have been building an extensive infrastructure network to service both freight shipping and cruise lines. Despite the foreign policy implications, the United States has taken few steps to respond.
Goodell then returns to Miami to describe how a metropolitan area of 5.5 million is attempting to cope with flooded streets, backed-up sewer drains, and a water supply rendered increasingly brackish by salt water intruding into the groundwater. “Miami is Drowning” is both a chapter title and an observable fact. However, despite the obvious, Miami continues to overdevelop its land and water resources and put even more people at risk. As more and more of the baby boomer generation seek warmer climates for retirement living, the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts will no doubt continue to be a nexus for yet more development on land vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
The book finishes on a somber note. Absent major policy changes, nothing much positive is going to happen. Although the best scientists in the world continue to document the reality of climate change, its likely impacts, and the role played by humans since the beginning of the Industrial Age, meaningful changes in policy and practice are hampered by those who seem to believe that climate change and sea level rise are nothing more than planks in a political platform, rather than an observable reality, and have effectively blocked even meaningful discussion that would recognize the hazard and take some action to make people safer.
Goddell is absolutely correct that time is running out. He states early on that “The best way to save coastal cities is to stop burning fossil fuels.” Unfortunately, the depressing but pragmatic reality is that the time to reverse (or at least significantly restrain) anthropomorphic climate change during this century has probably passed. Even the scientists responsible for the recent United Nations report on climate change concede that “. . . only unprecedented changes in the global economy and lifestyles” can prevent a global temperature rise of 2°C. As he has shown, there is little appetite in the United States for these sorts of draconian actions. But even though we may be doomed, we are not yet dead and therein lies hope.
We now appear to be having at least one “storm of the century” every year and whether or not this is being driven by carbon emissions is really moot in the short to intermediate term. Although we have improved our ability to monitor storm tracks and issue credible warnings, and evacuation has no doubt saved many lives, the built environment cannot be moved with every storm. As a longer-term strategy, living outside inundation zones that are associated with storm surges and flash floods is a wiser choice. At the very least, better identification and delineation of floodways and flood-prone areas, and the implementation of appropriate land-use planning and regulatory tools, could lead to safer and more resilient development patterns. Abandoning vulnerable coastal areas and allowing them to return to a natural state may be a preferable alternative, but its practical application would have enormous social and economic impacts on property owners and communities. A balance must be struck between sustainable development practices and the needs and rights of property owners.
Although physical flood defenses can be effective, they are expensive and create a dependency from which it is difficult or impossible to deviate. For example, New Orleans and the entire Mississippi River Basin in the United States are now hostage to decisions made at the national level more than 100 years ago to install massive levees and floodwalls. These structures require constant care (which is often not funded), increase vulnerability outside the protected zone, and also have the undesirable effect of luring new development into these “protected” areas (a quick review of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans will confirm this). Before going down a road from which it is difficult to return, we need to be aware of how today’s decision making can affect the long-term future.
Finally, in the aftermath of the next major storm that will inevitably occur, we need to be prepared to respond quickly and efficiently with particular attention to the most vulnerable among us. Rebuilding should not be in the same place in the same way; that will only reinforce a vicious cycle of loss and heartbreak that we have seen all too frequently in recent years. Ensuring that this occurs will require leadership, commitment, and resources directed toward a goal of increased safety and security in a world of changing and uncertain natural hazards. Anyone wishing to participate in this endeavor would do well to have read The Water Will Come.