But when it comes to coastal flooding, it’s also important to have some sort of long-term thinking. When there is a disaster, the political response by government is to try to help people and to stop the same disaster from happening again. If you have any other thoughts or insights on Rebuild by Design that you’d like to share, please do. That being said, our living breakwaters are an offshore option, and communities can still work with the city and Corps of Engineers to build vertical protections such as dunes or levees.Ĥ. levees) and other options, and we feel we have created a very appealing alternative. New York City has a very large coastal population in flood zones, and they expect something to be done in response to Sandy, and the options often boil down to vertical protections (e.g. We do this by restoring Staten Island’s historical water culture, reducing flood and wave risks, reducing erosion, improving educational and recreational opportunities at the shore, and thus making the ocean tides and waves (and their risks) more visible and tangible. It aims to improve the area’s resilience in a much broader way, including economics and coastal storms. Why is protecting Staten Island a concern for New York City?Īctually, the project isn’t really about “protecting” Staten Island. Staten Island coastal areas, while good for recreation, do not have the same vital infrastructure points as Lower Manhattan. Levees are a static solution to this very dynamic problem.ģ. The paired problems of sea level rise and urban coastal flooding is a very complex and dynamic problem involving not just physical flooding, but also sociology, psychology (do I evacuate?), economics and politics. In New Orleans, this occurred many times over and over through history, not just in 2006 ( see this reference). Once the flood goes above a levee design height you have abrupt rushing water filling in the “protected” area, which can make the hazard MORE deadly than a gradually rising water level. #Living breakwaters plusThis is in contrast to levees, which always have a “design height” and this is typically the height of a 100-year storm, plus one or more extra feet allowing for sea level rise. But this is part of the plan the purpose of our approach is actually to NOT have a flood elevation where the adaptation abruptly becomes useless (or worsens the dangers). In terms of extreme storms, which can happen today and aren’t only a thing of the future, the breakwaters gradually become less effective at reducing wave heights as a flood deepens above them. One of the main innovations with the breakwaters is that they are designed to GROW with sea level rise, as oyster beds can easily grow at a similar or faster rate. Because the breakwaters aren’t a type of levee or berm but instead a buffer, how long do you think they will remain effective, given issues like continual sea level rise or the potential for stronger storms? However, the approach could also be used selectively at open coastal locations where there is surfing, as long as surfers are brought into the process of planning reefs that they might enjoy using for surfing.Ģ. So, it’s an ideal location where modification of the wave climate will not cause opposition of surfers and others who enjoy the waves. However, the irregular US Northeast coast has many locations with similarities, such as beach areas near Boston, as well as all of coastal Masschusetts and New Hampshire.Ī distinguishing feature of a coastal area like that of Staten Island is that waves are not a normal feature utilized for recreation, such as surfing. Staten Island is a somewhat unusual semi-protected coastal location, where waves are typically small, but can be large during coastal storms. Do you think that a proposal like this, and Rebuild’s competition by extension, supports experimenting with coastal protection locally in a way that can be used throughout the coastal US? Yet, the Island’s location at the mouth of the harbor makes for a special case of erosion. The proposal for Living Breakwaters states that the breakwater system developed to protect Staten Island’s coastline could be used in other vulnerable communities. I was asked by an intern at City Atlas, Travis Gonzales, to answer his well-posed questions on our winning Rebuild By Design entry, Living Breakwaters, and here is that Q&A, which I think gets addresses some important aspects of the concept.ġ.
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