Recent climate-change projections have put some new cities in the crosshairs
The sun rises during a Manhattanhenge sunrise along 42nd Street behind the skyline of midtown Manhattan in New York City on January 11, 2020 as seen from Weehawken, New Jersey.The Thwaites Glacier is about the size of a U.S. swing state and holds enough ice to raise sea levels by about 10 feet. This alone is scary enough to justify its nickname, the Doomsday Glacier, but there's more.
These projections carry some uncertainty, but one thing seems pretty clear: the next century will be tough for coastal city dwellers. Sea levels are rising about 3 millimeters each year. By the end of the century, the oceans could rise at least 2 feet over 2005 levels, according to a 2018 study in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
Some cities in the developed world haven't adequately addressed the rising threat. In particular, Miami and New York are vulnerable to storm surges that bedevil the east coast of the U.S., and neither has implemented adequate protections. They would do well to take a page from London, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which have invested in dykes, barriers and drainage systems.
"We see people from all continents, all income levels, asking the same question: how to manage increased flooding over the next 10 or 20 years," says Hallegatte.Dar es SalaamDar es Salaam, the former capital of Tanzania, is home to 4.3 million people and is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. People are leaving the countryside in pursuit of jobs, better schools and access to healthcare. When they arrive, they tend to settle on flood-prone land.
Jakarta has struggled to find resources to build the infrastructure it needs to mitigate flooding. Last fall, a plan to purchase land along the river for the construction of flood-prevention walls was canceled to plug a budget deficit. In 2015, the city installed concrete walls along the Ci Liwung River, evicting settlers and moving them to permanent shelters, but it wasn't enough to prevent flooding in the heavy rains earlier this year.
Development has been focused on building high-rise buildings to handle the burgeoning population, but these are out of reach for many people in flood-prone areas. Improvements in housing stock across the board are sorely needed. A lack of infrastructure to mitigate the frequent flooding has inhibited investment. If the city can overcome this catch-22, it may be able to turn its attention to protecting the city from the extreme storms that come along every few years.
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