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As U.S. cities begin to plan to adapt to impacts from climate change, local decision makers face difficult choices about how to even get started.
A new study led by a University of Kansas urban planning researcher sheds light on tradeoffs between taking a narrow approach focused on connections between climate change adaptation and reducing risks from hazards like Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and taking a broader approach connecting adaptation to a wide array of city functions.
"Climate change impacts will be pervasive - forcing changes to transportation, housing, emergency management and countless other parts of our daily lives—and cities will need holistic strategies," said Ward Lyles, assistant professor of urban planning in the KU School of Public Affairs & Administration. "Our research identifies a paradox, however. Cities that begin with a narrower focus as part of planning for natural hazards appear to lay a stronger foundation for a more comprehensive approach down the line. Meanwhile, cities that start by tackling the comprehensive range of climate-related impacts initially may lack the focus needed to robustly address climate change impacts, like flooding and severe storms."
Fat chance. Waterworld is happening, baby.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Friday October 13 2017, @04:38PM (6 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @06:26PM (1 child)
Except for the fact that preparing for preparing's sake is not something that people generally do, and especially governments.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 13 2017, @08:54PM
Nor did I say it was. Emergency preparedness is preparing for emergencies by circular definition.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 13 2017, @07:34PM (2 children)
You don't even have to postulate much in the way of global warming to justify this approach.
Everyone now realizes that Katrina was "JUST WAITING" to happen, and the idea of living below sea level in Nolo, a historical hurricane target zone, was always going to end badly. The land (the whole delta) was sinking long before global warming was a thing.
Even without a global sea rise, it still made no sense to have that many people living in the 9th Ward, protected by earthen dikes, and that area should never have been built upon.
Simply changing zoning laws and sloooooly reserving waterside areas for parks, crop farming, etc., allows you to cede the area to seasonal floods, without having to destroy lives and fortunes or build monumental systems of dikes and levees.
Doing the little things now to discourage building more traps makes sense even for today's risks. If they help when the sea rises, that's a double win.
We've never planned thing well in this world beyond the event horizon of single lifetime. Yet we've dealt with the mistakes of the past in every generation. We always wonder "What were those greedy bastards thinking back then?" instead of "What will this place look like in 200 years". Maybe they do this better in the UK, where the history and the landscape is littered with past mistakes and successes. But North America was hacked from the wilderness less than 300 years ago and nobody here has yet acquired the long view.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @11:45PM (1 child)
> Everyone now realizes that Katrina was "JUST WAITING" to happen
It isn't just hindsight. An episode of PBS' Nova [youtube.com] prior to Katrina warned, "When Hurricane Ivan barreled into the Gulf of Mexico, it was on a collision course with New Orleans, a city with a unique vulnerability to hurricanes."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 14 2017, @04:38AM
transcript [pbs.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 14 2017, @01:56AM
One Soylentil is well-prepared for sea level rise. He lives "high" in Colorado. [soylentnews.org] 🌲🔥