As Inland Becomes Coastal: Shifting Equity and Flood Risk in the Amite River Basin (USA)

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-504
Author(s):  
Craig E. Colten
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Waters ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Management Strategy ◽  
Baton Rouge ◽  
County Level ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The Us ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
Coastal Louisiana ◽  
Policy Adjustments

Coastal Louisiana is experiencing the most rapid relative sea-level rise in the US due to a combination of a subsiding delta and rising coastal waters. Consequently, the influences of extreme coastal weather are reaching farther inland and impacting urban areas where traditional environmental policy, organised at the parish (county) level, is unable to address this changing flood risks. This situation is most prominent in the metro Baton Rouge region with the largest city situated upstream from two small, but rapidly growing, parishes. Following a massive flood in 2016, the upstream parishes have undertaken policy adjustments to facilitate the expulsion of water toward downstream neighbors and foster redevelopment in the floodplain. The lower parish has expressed concerns about the anticipated increases in discharge to be sent its way. Although the state is concerned with rising sea levels, it has not merged coastal and inland flood policy considerations. Downstream residents have little voice in upstream policy making and the absence of basin-wide management strategy perpetuates emergent risks and environmental injustices. As climate change drives coastal conditions inland, the misalignment between locally based governance and regional environmental realities will become more pronounced and exacerbate social injustices.

scholarly journals Climate Adaptation Plans in the Context of Coastal Settlements: The Case of Portugal

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8559
Author(s):  
Francesca Dal Cin ◽  
Martin Fleischmann ◽  
Ombretta Romice ◽  
João Pedro Costa
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Coastal Planning ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Response Plan ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The impact of sea-level rise on coastal towns is expected to be a major challenge, with millions of people exposed. The climate-induced risk assessment of coastal areas subject to flooding plays an essential role in planning effective measures for adaptation plans. However, in European legislation, as well as in the regional plans adopted by the member states, there is no clear reference to urban settlement, as this concept is variable and difficult to categorise from the policy perspective. This lack of knowledge makes it complicated to implement efficient adaptation plans. This research examines the presence of the issue in Portugal’s coastal settlements, the European coastal area most vulnerable to rising sea levels, using the case of seashore streets as the most exposed waterfront public urban areas. Using the morphometric classification of the urban fabric, we analyse the relationship between urban typology and legislative macro-areas aimed at providing integrated adaptation plans. The study suggests that there is only a minimal relationship between the proposed classification and the geographical zones currently identified in coastal planning policies. Such incongruence suggests the need for change, as the policy should be able to provide a response plan tailored to the specificities of urban areas.

scholarly journals Resilietn Coupling: The Systems Of Coastally Dependent Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Saverio Knight Bortoluzzi ◽  
Arthur Wrigglesworth
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Communities ◽  
Brute Force ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Coastal Defence ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Us Army ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Face ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
Brute Force Approach

As climate change becomes a more prevalent reality, rising sea levels are increasingly a threat to cities and communities in coastal regions. In light of this it is important to consider architecture’s role in the strategizing of defences and resilience. The major issue with traditionally implemented coastal defence programs, such as those considered by the US Army Corp of Engineers, is their brute force approach is repressively one dimensional, undermining the diverse, and complex realities of any community. Orienting itself in the diverse and complex communities of Atlantic Canada, this thesis operates in the face of these challenges and shortfalls. Instead a coupling of systems, activities and events in these coastal communities can make possible an architecture that accommodates, and makes visible, the realities of its changing environs at a multitude of scales, allowing the continued success of human settlement.

The Subsident Gulf: Refiguring Climate Change in Jesmyn Ward’s Bois Sauvage

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly McKisson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Environmental Racism ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The Us ◽  
Rising Sea Levels

Abstract This article focuses on figures of subsidence in Jesmyn Ward’s novels of Bois Sauvage. Subsidence not only describes an actual process of sinking land in the US Gulf Coast bioregion but also refigures how those who study climate change can understand and address its material effects. A focus on subsidence makes visible the sometimes-invisible infrastructure of the ground, and analysis scaled to the figure of subsidence forces a reorientation of vision—away from rising sea levels and toward the destabilizing loss of land. From this perspective, Ward’s fiction identifies histories of colonial engineering, extraction, and displacement as key ecological dangers. Unsettling national narratives of the Gulf Coast, Ward’s subsident figurations connect issues of environmental emergency to structures of environmental racism, which unevenly enhance the precarity of certain communities by diminishing the ecological infrastructures of their lands. This article argues that literary fiction can produce new understandings of situated environmental challenges and can pose particular obligations for environmental justice.

scholarly journals Multilevel modeling of county-level excessive alcohol use, rurality, and COVID-19 case fatality rates in the US

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0253466
Author(s):  
George Pro ◽  
Paul A. Gilbert ◽  
Julie A. Baldwin ◽  
Clare C. Brown ◽  
Sean Young ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Alcohol Misuse ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Case Fatality ◽  
Population Characteristics ◽  
County Level ◽  
Model Case ◽  
The Us

Objective Reports of disparities in COVID-19 mortality rates are emerging in the public health literature as the pandemic continues to unfold. Alcohol misuse varies across the US and is related to poorer health and comorbidities that likely affect the severity of COVID-19 infection. High levels of pre-pandemic alcohol misuse in some counties may have set the stage for worse COVID-19 outcomes. Furthermore, this relationship may depend on how rural a county is, as access to healthcare in rural communities has lagged behind more urban areas. The objective of this study was to test for associations between county-level COVID-19 mortality, pre-pandemic county-level excessive drinking, and county rurality. Method We used national COVID-19 data from the New York Times to calculate county-level case fatality rates (n = 3,039 counties and county equivalents; October 1 –December 31, 2020) and other external county-level data sources for indicators of rurality and health. We used beta regression to model case fatality rates, adjusted for several county-level population characteristics. We included a multilevel component to our model and defined state as a random intercept. Our focal predictor was a single variable representing nine possible combinations of low/mid/high alcohol misuse and low/mid/high rurality. Results The median county-level COVID-19 case fatality rate was 1.57%. Compared to counties with low alcohol misuse and low rurality (referent), counties with high levels of alcohol and mid (β = -0.17, p = 0.008) or high levels of rurality (β = -0.24, p<0.001) demonstrated significantly lower case fatality rates. Conclusions Our findings highlight the intersecting roles of county-level alcohol consumption, rurality, and COVID-19 mortality.

scholarly journals Linking land subsidence to soil types within Hue city in Central Vietnam

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas BRAUN ◽  
Volker HOCHSCHILD ◽  
Gia Tung PHAM ◽  
Linh Hoang Khanh NGUYEN ◽  
Felix BACHOFER
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Surface Subsidence ◽  
Surface Velocity ◽  
Soil Types ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Persistent Scatterer ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
Building Activities ◽  
Radar Satellite

Coastal areas of Southeast Asia are progressively threatened by flooding as a consequence of more frequent precipitation extremes and rising sea levels. Especially urban areas are affected by flood risk which is additionally increased by surface subsidence related to building activities and groundwater extraction. However, the severity of subsidence as well as its triggers and environmental interrelations are only little understood. This study measures surface subsidence for Hue city by using persistent scatterer radar interferometry (PS-InSAR). A series of 53 images acquired by the Sentinel-1 radar satellite between 2018 and 2019 was analyzed to reliably retrieve surface changes at the millimeter scale. The overall displacement ranges between -25 and +10 millimeters per year. Its spatial distribution was then compared to the extent of different soil types in the study area to conduct an analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results confirmed a significant difference between the soil types with Plinthic Acrisols as the soil type having the largest negative average surface velocity. Possible triggers are the intrusion of slack water from the surrounding rice cultivation areas and construction activities which lead to increasing weight and soil compaction. The findings shall raise awareness for the topic and underline the demand for further research. Mưa lớn và nước biển dâng là những nguyên nhân gây lũ lụt ngày càng nghiêm trọng ở các khu vực ven biển Đông Nam Á. Đặc biệt việc gia tăng công trình xây dựng và khai thác nước ngầm gây sụt lún bề mặt dẫn đến ngập lụt ở các vùng đô thị. Tuy nhiên, các nghiên cứu về mối tương quan giữa sụt lún bề mặt với các hiện tượng môi trường chưa được chú trọng nhiều. Trong nghiên cứu này, độ lún bề mặt của thành phố Hue được đo bằng phương pháp giao thoa radar tán xạ liên tục (PS-InSAR). Phân tích 53 ảnh vệ tinh Sentinel-1 từ năm 2018-2019 cho thấy sự thay đổi tổng thể bề mặt dao động từ -25mm đến 10mm mỗi năm. Phân tích phương sai (ANOVA) cho thấy sự thay đổi bề mặt khác nhau tùy từng loại đất, trong đó đất đỏ vàng (Plinthic Acrisols) có tốc độ sụt lún trung bình cao nhất. Các tác nhân có thể là do sự xâm nhập của nước từ các vùng trồng lúa xung quanh và các hoạt động xây dựng dẫn đến tăng trọng lượng và nén đất. Những phát hiện này là cơ hội nâng cao nhận thức về sự sụt lún bề mặt và cần được nghiên cứu thêm.

Making new history: Contemporary art and the temporal orientations of climate change in Oceania

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggie Wander
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Digital Design ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Genealogical Relationship ◽  
The Us ◽  
Rising Sea Levels

This article explores artistic production in the region of Oceania that resists the ahistorical and future-oriented temporality of climate change discourse, as it perpetuates colonial structures of power by denying Indigenous futures and ignoring the violent histories that have led to the current climate breakdown. In the video poem Anointed (2018), prominent climate justice activist Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner strategically combines spoken word poetry with visual montage in order to situate Cold War nuclear tests by the US military within the same temporal plane as rising sea levels currently threatening the Marshall Islands. Katerina Teaiwa’s exhibition Project Banaba (2017) similarly mobilizes archival imagery in order to visualize the genealogical relationship between Banabans and the settler landscapes of Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. Sean Connelly’s architectural and design practice in Hawaiʻi Futures, an ongoing digital design project that engages with the threats of sea level rise and coastal erosion in Hawaiʻi, problematizes linear formations of time and favours a future structured around cyclical, ecological time instead. Interacting with vastly different sites, strategies and temporalities, these three multidisciplinary projects provide critical alternatives to the ahistorical framing of colonial climate change in Oceania and thus play a crucial role in constructing a more just future.

scholarly journals Strategies for adapting to hazards and environmental inequalities in coastal urban areas: what kind of resilience for these territories?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Long ◽  
Pierre Cornut ◽  
Virginia Kolb
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
National Level ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Coastal Risks ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Defence Strategy ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
Environmental Inequalities

Abstract. The ongoing phenomenon of climate change is leading to an upsurge in the number of extreme events. Territories must adapt to these modifications in order to protect their populations and the properties present in coastal areas. The adaptation of coastal areas also aims to make them more resilient to future events. In this article, we examine two strategies for adapting to coastal risks: holding the coastal line through hard constructions such as seawalls or ripraps and the managed retreat of activities and populations to a part of the territory not exposed to hazards. In France, these approaches are financed by a solidarity insurance system at the national level as well as local taxes. These solidarity systems aim to compensate the affected populations and finance implementation of the strategies chosen by local authorities. However, the French mainland coast generally attracts affluent residents, the price of land being higher than inland. This situation induces the presence of inequalities in these territories, inequalities which can be maintained or reinforced in the short and medium term when a defence strategy based on hard constructions is implemented. In such a trajectory, it appears that these territories would be less resilient in the long term, because of the maintenance costs of the structures and the uncertainties relating to the hazards (submersion, rising sea levels, erosion). Conversely, with a managed retreat strategy, inequalities would instead be done away with, since property and populations would no longer be exposed to hazards, which would cost society less and would lead these territories towards greater resilience in the long term. Only one social group would be strongly impacted by this strategy in the short term when they are subjected to a managed retreat to another part of the territory.

scholarly journals Strategies for adapting to hazards and environmental inequalities in coastal urban areas: what kind of resilience for these territories?

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 1087-1100
Author(s):  
Nathalie Long ◽  
Pierre Cornut ◽  
Virginia Kolb
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
National Level ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Local Taxes ◽  
Coastal Risks ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
Environmental Inequalities

Abstract. The ongoing phenomenon of climate change is leading to an upsurge in the number of extreme events. Territories must adapt to these modifications in order to protect their populations and the properties present in coastal areas. The adaptation of coastal areas also aims to make them more resilient to future events. In this article, we examine two strategies for adapting to coastal risks: holding the coastal line through hard constructions such as seawalls or ripraps and the managed retreat of activities and populations to a part of the territory not exposed to hazards. In France, these approaches are financed by a solidarity insurance system at the national level as well as local taxes. These solidarity systems aim to compensate the affected populations and finance implementation of the strategies chosen by local authorities. However, the French mainland coast generally attracts affluent residents, the price of land being higher than inland. This situation induces the presence of inequalities in these territories, inequalities which can be maintained or reinforced in the short and medium term when a defense strategy based on hard constructions is implemented. In such a trajectory, it appears that these territories would be less resilient in the long term because of the maintenance costs of the structures and the uncertainties relating to the hazards (submersion, rising sea levels, erosion). Conversely, with a managed-retreat strategy, inequalities would instead be done away with since property and populations would no longer be exposed to hazards, which would cost society less and would lead these territories towards greater resilience in the long term. Only one social group would be strongly impacted by this strategy in the short term when they are subjected to a managed retreat to another part of the territory.

scholarly journals Resilietn Coupling: The Systems Of Coastally Dependent Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Saverio Knight Bortoluzzi ◽  
Arthur Wrigglesworth
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Communities ◽  
Brute Force ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Coastal Defence ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Us Army ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Face ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
Brute Force Approach

As climate change becomes a more prevalent reality, rising sea levels are increasingly a threat to cities and communities in coastal regions. In light of this it is important to consider architecture’s role in the strategizing of defences and resilience. The major issue with traditionally implemented coastal defence programs, such as those considered by the US Army Corp of Engineers, is their brute force approach is repressively one dimensional, undermining the diverse, and complex realities of any community. Orienting itself in the diverse and complex communities of Atlantic Canada, this thesis operates in the face of these challenges and shortfalls. Instead a coupling of systems, activities and events in these coastal communities can make possible an architecture that accommodates, and makes visible, the realities of its changing environs at a multitude of scales, allowing the continued success of human settlement.

scholarly journals The Empowerment Strategy for The Food Crop Farmers in Anticipating The Climate Change

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 131
Author(s):  
Efriyani Sumastuti
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Food Crop ◽  
Crop Failure ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Central Java ◽  
Rising Sea Levels

In Indonesia, the climate change and the global warming like changes in the pattern and distribution of the rainfall give impacts on agricultural production at large, especially in the food crops. These also cause droughts, floods, landslides, forest fires, rising temperatures in urban areas, and rising sea levels. The above impacts are felt by the farmers because those can lead to a decrease in production even the crop failure. This research aims to develop an empowerment strategy of the food crop farmers in anticipating the climate change in Central Java. The data used is the primary data obtained through in-depth interviews with key-person and the Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The Analysis Hierarchy Process (AHP) is conducted to determine the program priorities and strate gies. The result of research shows that anticipating the climate change should be synergistically conducted in four aspects: human resources, technology, institutional and production, by involving various groups in the society. Various groups can be grouped into academics, businessmen / private sectors, government and community of food crop farmers / society.

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