Coastal infrastructure protectionKey U.S. coastal areas bracing for greater sea level rise challenges

Published 7 August 2014

While climate change-related sea level rise is predicted to impact much of the country — whether directly or indirectly — over the next several decades, certain parts of the nation’s coasts are expecting to deal with more unique and intensive challenges.

While climate change-related sea level rise is predicted to impact much of the country — whether directly or indirectly — over the next several decades, certain parts of the nation’s coasts are expecting to deal with more unique and intensive challenges.

As News-Press reports, coastal centers such as Pensacola, Florida, Brevard County, Florida, New Orleans, Louisiana, and New Jersey are all predicted to face considerable damage in the event of sea-level rise.

In Pensacola, local environmental groups are pressing government officials to take further measures to fight sea level rise. Recently, they formed an action group called 350 Pensacola which is lobbying the Pensacola City Council this summer to create a task force designed to “help the city plan for rising sea levels and more severe weather.” This follows a season of heavy rains and the increasing prevalence of potentially deadly mudslides.

The city council has rejected the agenda item, but the group plans to fight on and continue to gain momentum.

While Brevard County is facing many of the same challenges as Pensacola, the area is under increased risk due to dangerous and destructive storm surges that threaten economic and historical infrastructures such as the Kennedy Space Center and the surrounding Cape Canaveral area. Efforts to counteract the thrust of these waves with artificial dunes have so far not worked as hoped.

In the area of Satellite Beach in Brevard County, the city council formed a subcommittee which made recommendations for defensive measures against storm surges. The resulting plans were incorporated into the city’s comprehensive 2014 actions and budget, earning the area acknowledgment of being one of the earlier adopters of important local climate change organization.

New Orleans and New Jersey are both similar in that they have experienced deadly and costly hurricanes within the past decade that have served as an early warning of the danger of increasing climate-change-related storms. In New Orleans the damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — the death of 2,000 people and billions in property damage — have haunted the city ever since.

The Katrina rebuilding effort has led to new building codes, including raising homes six feet above the ground and designing roofs that allow residents to exit to higher elevation. Additionally, the levees have been further secured, with even more pumping stations.

Lastly, in response to Hurricane Sandy in 2012, New Jersey has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the widening of beaches, the implementation of sea walls, and further sand dunes.

While sea level rise will impact all, many areas are acknowledging their increased exposure and beginning to take measures to counteract previous planning which did not take sea level rise into account – before it is too late.