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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

CLIMATE CHANGE AND COASTAL CITIES

Posted by DAVID
Published on Tues, Nov 13 2012


I came across an interesting post today regarding how an increase in coastal flooding is impacting the design of our coastal cities. The blogger calls for designers to make "resilient cities" that can resist and reduce the impacts of natural disasters and problems of infrastructure.

This morning, Baltimore wakes up to two existing infrastructure problems, as another water main break happened yesterday in town, coupled with a water main break from this weekend. The infrastructure from this system is past due - in most cases over 100 years old. And some 4000 miles of pipe laid throughout the city grid would take billions of dollars to fix. So, it has to be prioritized as to the replacement - choosing when and where to begin can be an overwhelming task. To date, the city seems to be behind in these efforts, trying to catch up to the damage being caused rather than getting ahead of it.

When we think of "resilient cities", the idea of buoyancy comes to mind... a city that can float rather than flood. The concept is obtuse in many ways, but with sensible infrastructure it may not be that off base.

One can imagine systems that are allowed to flood - even capable of handling large amounts of overflow - that would provide relief for other, more susceptible portions of the urban grid. The movement of water throughout the city - whether it be sewage or storm water, which both tend to be dated infrastructures in American cities - needs to be considered holistically. This will require new ways of imagining the city in the future, with large portions of land dedicated for "part-time" use as overflow regions, as regions for filtration, and as regions that allow the presence of water to be continuous. Having landscapes dedicated to this function will provide relief in unexpected ways - particularly on the restoration costs, post-disaster.

At any rate, here is a link to the blog entry from Irina Vinnitskaya on archdaily.com:
http://www.archdaily.com/292416/the-threat-of-coastal-flooding/

And here is a link to the report mentioned in her blog by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):
http://www.oecd.org/environment/climatechange/39729575.pdf


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