The Digital Coast What is the Digital Coast? This NOAA-sponsored website is focused on helping communities address coastal issues and has become one of the most-used resources in the coastal management community. The dynamic Digital Coast Partnership, whose members represent…
Category: Sea Level Rise
Natural Cycles and the Mississippi Delta – A Voice Annotated Slideshow
Virtual Guest Lecturer. Using Natural Cycles to Make Better Decisions about Adaptation to Climate Change: The Future of the Louisiana Coast. Mercer Law School, March 2015 – YouTube The slides
Topographic Map Showing Louisiana Risks from Sea Level Rise
State of Louisiana—Highlighting Low-Lying Areas Derived from USGS Digital Elevation Data (large file) In support of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) disaster preparedness efforts, this map depicts a color shaded relief representation highlighting the State of Louisiana and depicts the surrounding areas…
Restoring the Gulf of Mexico for People and Wildlife – More Climate Change Denial
National Wildlife Federation: Restoring the Gulf of Mexico for People and Wildlife: Recommended Projects and Priorities (2014) [Some of the inland projects do make sense, such as dealing with the water flow into the Everglades. But the coastal projects all…
Community Resettlement Prospects in Southeast Louisiana
Community Resettlement Prospects in Southeast Louisiana: A Multidisciplinary Exploration of Legal, Cultural, and Demographic Aspects of Moving Individuals and Communities. An Issue Paper of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law & Policy September 2014. From the report: This paper…
Encroaching Tides – How Sea Level Rise and Tidal Flooding Threaten U.S. East and Gulf Coast Communities
Spanger-Siegfried, E., M.F. Fitzpatrick, and K. Dahl. 2014. Encroaching tides: How sea level rise and tidal flooding threaten U.S. East and Gulf Coast communities over the next 30 years. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists. Today scores of coastal communities in…
Reducing Coastal Risks on the East and Gulf Coasts – NRC
National Research Council. Reducing Coastal Risks on the East and Gulf Coasts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2014. National Vision Needed to Achieve Comprehensive Risk Reduction Along Atlantic and Gulf Coasts WASHINGTON – A national vision for coastal risk…
U.N. – Sea-Level Rise in Small Island Nations
Sea-Level Rise in Small Island Nations – Up to Four Times the Global Average – to Cost US$ Trillions in Annual Economic Loss and Impede Future Development: Shift to Green Policies and Investment Critical Bridgetown, 5 June 2014 – Climate…
Coastal Sea Level Rise Resources
Surging Seas – Flood risks with climate change on the US coast (Climate Central) Excellent site for illustrating the current and future risk of sea level rise. It is also useful for showing what lower levees of hurricane storm tides…
Allowing wetlands to migrate inland as sea level rises – state land use issues
Titus J, Hudgens D, Trescott D, Craghan M, Nuckols W, Hershner C, et al. State and local governments plan for development of most land vulnerable to rising sea level along the US Atlantic coast. Environmental Research Letters. 2009;4(4):044008. with supplement…
Public Relations for Diversions 101
Answering 10 Fundamental Questions about the Mississippi River Delta (original link) This is one of many reports advocating for river diversions. The basic claim is simple: Diversions will have impacts on vegetation, particularly on the distribution of some plant species. However,…
Overwhelming Risk – Rethinking Flood Insurance in a World of Rising Seas
Union of Concerned Scientists Our coasts face growing risks from sea level rise. Today’s flood insurance system encourages development that increases these risks — and taxpayers nationwide pay the price. Sea level is rising and increasing the risk of destructive…
Warming of the Oceans and Implications for the (Re)insurance Industry
• There is new, robust evidence that the global oceans have warmed significantly. Given that energy from the ocean isthe key driver of extreme events, ocean warming has effectively caused a shift towards a “new normal” for a number of…
New York City Plan for Climate Change
Read the Report On June 11, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced “A Stronger, More Resilient New York”, a comprehensive plan that contains actionable recommendations both for rebuilding the communities impacted by Sandy and increasing the resilience of infrastructure and buildings citywide.…
The Pontchartrain Levee District Progress Report – 2012
The Pontchartrain Levee District Progress Report – 2012 From the Report: The Pontchartrain Levee District (PLD) is the local sponsor for the projects referenced herein. Currently, there are projects in each of the six parishes comprising the PLD’s jurisdiction. As…
Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States – 2012
Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment, December 6, 2012. Global sea level rise has been a persistent trend for decades. It is expected to continue beyond the end of this century, which will cause…
EU Floods Directive
Directive 2007/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on the assessment and management of flood risks. More information
5th Circuit Upholds Ruling in Katrina Levee Breaches Litigation – Update – Case rejected
Update: Court dismisses Katrina Levee Breach cases under FTCA – In re Katrina Canal Breaches Litigation, 696 F.3d 436 (5th Cir.(La.) 2012) Additional cases and commentary The 5th Circuit just affirmed the lower court decision in the Katrina Levee Breaches Litigation.…
States plan to develop land most vulnerable to ocean rise
Rising sea level threatens existing coastal wetlands. Overall ecosystems could often survive by migrating inland, if adjacent lands remained vacant. On the basis of 131 state and local land use plans, we estimate that almost 60% of the land below…
Climate Change: Adapt or Bust
The past few years highlight bluntly the cost of weather-related catastrophes for the global economy and the insurance industry in particular. The industry’s response has proven that it is financially strong and well-equipped to respond to these financial shocks.
It is equally clear that, so far, the industry has not taken changing catastrophe trends seriously enough. Climate change is likely to bring us all an even more uncertain future. If we do not take action now to understand the risks and their impact, the changing climate could kill us.
Ocean Rise in New York State
New York State Sea Level Rise Task Force, Report to the Legislature, December 2010.
The communities along New York State’s coastline, including their structures, their residents, their environment and the surrounding natural resources, are products of decisions made over the course of many years. These decisions shaped decades of investment, development and conservation. While the extent of the impacts to coastal communities from a rising sea are not fully known, even the most conservative projections make clear that there will be dramatic changes in this century.[…]
Against the Deluge: Storm Surge Barriers to Protect New York City
Program by the American Society of Civil Engineers, New York City Metropolitan chapter, on the use of hardened protections against storm surges and ocean rise.
Florida’s Beaches – Caught between the ocean and a hard place
Florida is facing the same problems with global warming that face Louisiana: as the beaches try to retreat inland with ocean rise, they are stopped by armoring on developments. For Louisiana, this means the end of the wet lands. For…
Climate Adaptation in the Caribbean
Grand Cayman, 18 August 2010 – The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) has released the preliminary results of a study on the Economics of Climate Adaptation (ECA) in the Caribbean. In releasing the results, CCRIF Chairman Milo Pearson indicated that they will “enable countries in the region to develop fact-based adaptation strategies that can be incorporated into national development plans to increase resilience against climate hazards.”[…]