Over the years, climate has been changing creating sea levels to rise and more people are moving to the cities looking for jobs and opportunities leading to land in urban areas to subside. Because of this, the world’s coastal cities are at an increasing risk of dangerous (economically and physically) flooding. Cities on the coast have different defenses to help prevent flooding but these defenses are geared towards today’s current state. With the rise of sea levels these defenses will no longer be applicable and the city will flood. It is important that something is done now to prevent this flooding in the future. If cities wait too long, the loss of lives and the economy will cause a disaster on the city.
For the first time in history, about half of the world’s population is classified as residing in urban areas . From now to 2050 the human population is anticipated to continue to grow . Forecasts predict a growth in more urban areas rather than rural. During the 20th century, the U.S. grew most rapidly near the coasts and around large cities. California, Texas, Florida, and New York are the four states with the largest populations and where 38 percent of the U.S. population growth occurred during this time period. These states are also the ones that are most vulnerable to the rising sea levels and other global climate changes. While many small and intermediate cities are experiencing the most rapid rates of growth, large cities continue to expand in size, density, and population. In these cities, the poor are most at risk. Rapid urbanization has forced them into susceptible neighborhoods in low-lying areas and along waterways that are prone to flooding. More than a third of the world’s total population lives the urban area of ...
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Edward D. Murphy, “Architects design two-day event to explore issue of sea level rise: Their goal is to devise proposals for southern Maine and inform the public about vulnerable areas.” Maine Today, Local and state; pg. B1, 12 May 2011.
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It is being managed by the local council in two different ways. These include; a rip-rap wall, dune stabilization. The rip-rap wall consists of large rocks which have been piled up at an angle. Behind the rip-rap wall the land use is mainly commercial, but there is also some residential land-use. This method has been used because human land-use is right on top of the ocean, and in order to defend these buildings a hard option is required.
When she went to the Netherlands, she found that the rising sea level was expected to take up a large portion of the country. However, in areas where there is already periodic flood, they have already started construction on amphibious home and buoyant roads.
Due to the changing climate and rising sea levels, Morro Bay is prone to flooding. According to City of Morro Bay (n.d.), the greatest damage occurred during the 1969 storm. The floods caused substantial damage to telephone, electric and gas lines, water wells and bridges. The total damage caused by 1969 storm related flooding was $1,476 million (Alluvial Fan Task Force, n.d.). The 1969 flooding was blamed at poor drainage systems. Currently, Morro Bay has taken steps to maintain, repair and evaluate drainage systems within the community to prevent damage caused by flooding. The city of Morro Bay has employed flood control program which maintains all storm drain facilities and creeks on public property and manages emergency response during heavy
When analyzing Boomtown’s weather in Activity 27, we found that the hillside and the marsh would be most affected by flooding, or any other excessive precipitation. Green Hill would be affected by extra precipitation during the wet season because it could cause mudslides. Mudslides could cause the houses on the hill to be unstable and the neighborhoods below the hill to be in danger. Also, excess water could affect the marsh because it would flood the area. Since not all water can be absorbed by the marsh, houses built there would easily flood during the rainy season in Boomtown. In contrast, houses constructed on Seaside Cliff wouldn’t easily be affected by additional
Metro Atlanta is on a collision course with reality – and the shock of this collision will have profound political and economic implications for future growth throughout the Southeast. The core problem is that Atlanta’s runaway growth will soon outstrip the available water supply (Corps, 1998). And if Atlanta continues to increase its water consumption until the maximum limits are reached, the effects on downstream users will become catastrophic, both economically and environmentally.
The effect of sea level rising is especially challenging for the population that lives in low-lying coastal communities, such as Miami Beach. The city is surrounded by sea. Miami Beach is linked to the mainland city of Miami through causeways, and it is an area that allocates much of the wealth from its art decoration and former celebrity playground standing. For them, funding does not seem to be a problem. However, the threat they are facing, cannot be entirely solved by money. Its sea level rising is at 9 millimeters a year, while there is only 3 millimeters on global average acceleration. If the sea level rises for 6 feet by 2100, Miami Beach city will get swallowed. When referring about sea level rising phenomenon, Miami Beach always acts as a ground zero example. Government leaders around the world are waiting to see how this rich living laboratory experiment place can avoid drowning. Below is a figure showing the sea level rising between 1900 and 2020 in Miami and Miami Beach
The city of Miami Beach has already tried once to solve the flooding issue. The mayor, Philip Levine took action by “installing enormous pumps underground that will suck water off the streets and dump it into Biscayne Bay.” Levine has already installed six of the fifty-four that he has planned to install around Miami Beach. These pumps are a complete waste of money because regardless of how many will be installed, the sea level rising will just cause the pumps to be ineffective. On her trip, Kolbert meets with scientist Hal Wanless. Wanless shares his opinion with Kolbert about the millions of dollars that Miami Beach has already spent on trying to stop the reoccurring flooding. Wanless states, “So much money down the drain. Sooner or later-and probably sooner-the city will have too much water to deal with.” The state officials must find a different way to solve the flooding if they want to save their state. But the officials have already made up their minds to not invest any further money because of the failure and money lost from the
The country of the Netherlands is a place of proud and prospering people with a rich Dutch culture and beautiful cities. Holland is constantly overflowing with innovative ideas and wondrous breakthroughs in agriculture, but for many years the Netherlands has faced a growing issue that is threatening the entire coast and mainland of their country. Global warming has contributed to a consistent increase of rising sea levels. Due to the issue that a majority of the mainland in Holland is well below sea level, the Dutch government has implemented necessary plans to revise the existing costal security program to protect the country from wide scale flooding and to ensure the security of the major cities and historic sites found throughout Holland.
Owens, James (nd). Is Limiting the Population Growth a key Factor in Protecting the Global Environment.
Caused by climate change and urbanization, water shortages are a major concern of the Mexican government at both the local and federal level. Mexico City, the third largest city in the world with more than twenty million inhabitants, struggles with water scarcity because of the potential risk it poses to the wellbeing of its citizens. Similar to the situation in other megacities, such as Jakarta and Bangkok, Mexico City’s water supplies are being depleted because of a growing urban population. (CBC News , 2009 ) Unable to sufficiently supply the increasing population size of the city, the water in the Mexico Valley aquifer is being drawn out faster than the aquifer’s recharge rate. Exacerbated by the fragmented nature of Mexico’s political culture, the exploitation of Mexico City’s water resources due to a growing urban population is detrimentally degrading the environment and creating a self-perpetuating problem that places the city and its inhabitants at risk.
Flooding is an ongoing challenge in regional Victoria and it is expected to affect Victoria every 10-20 years. Victoria consists of 39 drainage basins and each of the basins comprises of rivers and streams (Comrie, 2011, pp.17). These rivers and streams are susceptible to flooding, which may impact various regional towns and communities within close proximity to water courses (Comrie, 2011, pp.17). The discussion of flooding is vital, as it is the most frequent occurring natural hazard, which affects approximately 520 million people per year Moore et al.2012, pp.1). Additionally, flooding is responsible for the lives of approximately 25,000 people every year and cost the global economy approximately $50- 60 billion per year (Moore et al.2012,
A general situation of urbanization trend in developing countries and developed countries is increasing. In 18th Century only 3% of the world total population lived in urban areas but as projected in 2000 this number will increase at above 50% (UN as cited in Elliot, 1999, p. 144). According to UN (as cited in Elliot, 1999, p.144), it is figured that the total urban population in developing countries has increased from approximately 400 millions people in 1950 to approximately 2000 millions people in 2000. At the same time, total urban population in developed countries is double...
"Ocean Events." GRACE â Uncovering the 2010-11 Decline in Global Mean Sea Level and Its Relation to ENSO (October, 2012). N.p., 8 Oct. 2012. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
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The people of Bangladesh suffer so much from flooding because of the location of Bangladesh, population, monsoon climate, wealth of people/country, lack of emergency services, low amount of food and unclean water and loss of life and injures caused by diseases and flooding. The government have developed a Flood Action Plan, but this plan to reconstruct the whole country will definitely be very difficult because of the inundating amount of problems.