Managed Retreat

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm pleased to see someone else admitting that not all cities can stay where they are.  This article gives several examples of how cities could adapt to climate change, including the option of moving inland. 

Some of these are viable solutions for problems like sunny-day floods, saltwater encroachment, or land loss.

However, none of them will defend against the increasingly violent storms that batter the coastlines.  Those range for many miles inland.  Some whole states are at risk, and many more have significant areas at risk.  That's before accounting for the inland  impact of hurricanes.  Since human habitations require water and often hug the coastlines, a complete inland retreat is probably unfeasible.  We'll have to figure out ways of coping with both floods and winds, which is difficult.  But the farther from the coast, the better, for both of those hazards.

In order to choose appropriate response strategies, each city must look at its current and projected problems, along with its general needs and available resources.  The bottom line is that a lot of people will have to move due to environmental foreclosure, and many more will have to change the way they do things.  This can be done in safer, more logical ways through managed retreat or in risky evacuations as people flee just ahead of disasters.

Comments

[erulisse]

Another really unfortunate potential effect of strategic retreat/relocation when you are in a coastal area is that new construction tends to significantly reduce the ability of the ground to absorb water and route it in ways that won't cause problems. A lot of the inland flooding that happens in the Houston metro is because of this.

[siliconshaman]

Well, Florida is a write-off whatever you do. The salt-water encroachment up through the porous limestone bedrock alone is going to wreck agriculture and destroy concrete foundations. Indeed, the recent collapse of that condo might be the result of that! There's talk of the concrete slab foundation suffering from salt-water damage, but I doubt that's the whole story.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm pretty sure 3D printed concretedome houses could be designed to withstand storms.

I wonder if such buildings could be placed to act as windbreaks or tsunami buffers? (In case of tsunami, evacuate and come back later!)