7 Clever Ways to Fight Flooding in an Increasingly Wet World
Countries around the world are buttressing and planning as floods like those in Louisiana become commonplace.
BIG
The American Red Cross has declared the recent floods near Baton Rouge, Louisiana—which have damaged more than 40,000 structures and left thousands homeless—the worst natural disaster in the United States since Hurricane Sandy. The state, which was infamously crippled by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, is no stranger to flooding, and officials have ramped up efforts to prevent water-related disasters since. The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s Comprehensive Plan for a Sustainable Coast, for instance, lays out new building guidelines and includes plans for over 100 flood-related infrastructure projects totaling $50 billion. With similar climate events happening much more frequently, and tides rising quickly, countries around the world are struggling to create new flood barriers and strategies. Here are some essential plans, in areas susceptible to flooding.
Paula Bronstein / Annenberg Space For Photography01Japan Seawall
Shortly after the March 2011 Tōhoku Tsunami inundated much of the area around Sendai, Japan, the Japanese government issued plans to spend upwards of $6 billion to build more than 250 miles of new and updated concrete seawalls, in some places more than 40 feet high. It's an ambitious proposal, but similar barriers failed to protect the country from the previous disaster---a fact that has left many skeptical of the plan.
ALEXANDER SCHIPPERS/AFP/Getty Images02Scheveningen Boulevard Coastal Barrier, The Hague
The Netherlands, which is located largely at or below sea level, has some of the most sophisticated flood control infrastructure in the world. A good example is the Scheveningen Boulevard Coastal Barrier, located in a seaside village near The Hague. The curving, mile-long structure, designed by late architect Manuel de Sola-Morales, was constructed of clay, sand, and stone, and contains a hidden 36-foot-high sea wall. On top it's a popular destination, covered with colorful surfaces, plantings, pavilions, and street furniture.
BIG03The Big U, New York City
As part of the city’s many efforts to buttress itself from storms in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Danish architects BIG recently won a Department of Housing and Urban Development competition to design a 10-mile-long protective system of landscaping and barriers around Manhattan that double as public space. It's called the Big U. Looping from West 57^th^ Street to East 42^nd^ Street, the plan calls for a raised, sloping, landscape-covered barrier extending from the city’s existing waterfront infrastructure. The five other winners of the competition will be focusing on coastal zones at the edge of the Bronx, Staten Island, Long Island, and New Jersey. The city’s 2013 Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency outlined countless other measures to address resiliency. Many are underway or completed.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images04The Sunset Harbor Street Program, Miami Beach
One of the most dramatic victims of sea level rise has been Miami, where streets and sidewalks are increasingly flooded by so-called king tide events. In response, the city is spending close to half a billion dollars on flood mitigation, including a completely re-engineered streetscape in commonly flooded Sunset Harbour, featuring a street and sidewalk on an upper tier, 2 ½ feet above the front doors of roadside businesses, and backed by a nearby pump house. Miami is raising streets across the city, and is reportedly installing up to 80 pump stations.
PARK YEONG-CHEOL/AFP/Getty Images05Saemangeum Seawall, Gunsan, South Korea
Located on the southwest coast of the Korean peninsula, Saemangeum, completed in 2010, is the world's longest man-made dyke, measuring 21 miles. Running between two headlands, and separating the Yellow Sea and the former Saemangeum estuary, it was described by former American Ambassador to Korea Kathleen Stephens as the country’s “Great Wall on the sea.” Its average width is 950 feet, and its average height is 120 feet.
VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images06The MOSE Project, Venice
Another place famously under threat from “Acqua Alta” is Venice, whose relationship with the sea has long been a love/hate one. The ongoing MOSE Project (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, which means Experimental Electromechanical Module.) is a mile-long system of mobile flood gates installed at the city’s inlets to shut off the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea during times of flood and rising tides. Other efforts to prevent catastrophe in the slowly sinking city include coastal reinforcement, quayside elevation, and lagoon buttressing.
Diane Leightman/CPRA07Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s Comprehensive Plan for a Sustainable Coast, Louisiana
The plan, first launched in 2007, and updated continuously since, calls a dizzying array of flood prevention measures that call out just how many systems play a part in protection from natural disasters. Just a few include new or restored levees, pumps, coastal habitats, barrier islands, marshes, and shores. The plan also calls for raising and flood proofing buildings, and government acquisition of structures or entire communities built in particularly threatened areas.
