As the seas rise, a slow-motion disaster gnaws at America’s shores
Water's Edge
Part 1: A Reuters analysis finds that flooding is increasing along much of the nation’s coastline, forcing many communities into costly, controversial struggles with a relentless foe.
excerpt: For this article, Reuters analyzed millions of data entries and spent months reporting from affected communities to show that, while government at all levels remains largely unable or unwilling to address the issue, coastal flooding on much of the densely populated Eastern Seaboard has surged in recent years as sea levels have risen.
These findings, first reported July 10, aren’t derived from computer simulations like those used to model future climate patterns, which have been attacked as unreliable by skeptics of climate change research. The analysis is built on a time-tested measuring technology – tide gauges – that has been used for more than a century to help guide seafarers into port.
Reuters gathered more than 25 million hourly readings from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide gauges at nearly 70 sites on the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts and compared them to flood thresholds documented by the National Weather Service.
The analysis was then narrowed to include only the 25 gauges with data spanning at least five decades. It showed that during that period, the average number of days a year that tidal waters reached or exceeded flood thresholds increased at all but two sites and tripled at more than half of the locations.
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http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/waters-edge-the-crisis-of-rising-sea-levels/
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[font size=5]A Tale of Two Northern European Cities:
Meeting the Challenges of Sea Level Rise[/font]
03 NOV 2015
[font size=1]A view of downtown Rotterdam, the Netherlands. “Fighting water is a war you never win,” says one Dutch official. View gallery.[/font]
[font size=4]For centuries, Rotterdam and Hamburg have had to contend with the threat of storm surges and floods. Now, as sea levels rise, planners are looking at innovative ways to make these cities more resilient, with new approaches that could hold lessons for vulnerable urban areas around the world.[/font]
BY DANIEL GROSSMAN
PHOTOS BY ALEX MACLEAN
[font size=3]Water rings Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second-largest largest city, at the confluence of the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt rivers, about 19 miles from the North Sea. Merchants founded the city, now Europe’s largest port. But the water that has long favored Rotterdam also threatens it. Ninety percent of the city sits below sea level. A band of dikes snakes along the city’s shoreline, a reminder of storm surges that could flood Rotterdam at any time.
Hamburg, Europe’s second-largest port, sits in an inland delta of the Elbe River. Cargo ships stacked high with red, orange, and blue containers glide up the Elbe, close by downtown. Settlers and conquerors built Hamburg on low bluffs above the north bank. It’s largely free of flood danger. But neighborhoods at the base of the plateau and on a few islands are at or below sea level.
Residents of these two great port cities have battled water for centuries. Floods have devastated property and, at times, drowned people by the hundreds. Out of their ruins, the vulnerable cities have learned how to cope with the ever-present risk of flooding. But, according to Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs for the Netherlands, “fighting water is a war you never win,” and that is especially true today considering that global sea levels are projected to rise at least three feet this century.
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