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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is floating a $4.6 billion plan to protect the most vulnerable areas in Miami-Dade County, Florida, from future coastal flooding and storm surge damage. The plan is part of the $3 million, three-year Miami-Dade Back Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study, which is examining current and future storm management strategies. — Construction Dive
According to Construction Dive, "the proposed plan focuses on seven geographic areas and would include the construction of storm surge barriers with floodwalls and pump stations, as well as nonstructural measures like home elevations and flood-proofing. The plan also includes the... View full entry
Prompted by the success of a similar competition it ran in New York several years ago, The Rockefeller Foundation has launched a completely Ben-Carson-HUD-free contest that challenges architects and urban planners to "imagine climate change solutions" for the San Francisco Bay Area. Opening for... View full entry
Is flood mitigation the new frontier in urban planning? China, whose urban centers have regularly been experiencing infrastructure-shuttering floods, is actively encouraging its metropolises to start reshaping themselves to handle the new reality via the so-called "sponge city" program. As an... View full entry
The people of Nijmegen aren’t taking their good luck for granted. With climate change expected to bring more intense storms like the one in 1995 (and a previous one in 1993), the city is embarking on a massive flood-control project. That may be expected in the Netherlands, a low-lying country where most homes are built behind protective dikes [...]. But even here, the approach underway in Nijmegen is unusual, and filled with ideas that river cities anywhere can learn from. — citiscope.org
Dutch water-management experts have done such a good job of protecting their country that they rarely get to practice with water crises — whereas America was facing something monumental that as a culture it didn’t yet grasp. When Donovan arrived back in the U.S., he opened an email from Ovink that said, in effect, “I hope this isn’t too forward, but could I come work with you?” — nytimes.com
Another way to phrase it is that hard decisions need to be made to cope with rising waters and severe weather. Notwithstanding the obvious difference between a group of farmers on a Dutch polder and communities in the Rockaways or Coney Island, good government makes those decisions while giving affected residents adequate knowledge and agency: the ability to make choices, and the responsibility to live by them. — New York Times
