Boston Harbor Flood Protection Projects

buju b said:
To further Rifleman's point, the earth, throughout it's history, has had multiple periods of relatively warm and cold overall conditions--all without ANY influence from ANYTHING manmade.
Madre Nature does her thing, has been for BILLIONS of years and will continue to do so long after humans have come and gone.
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You understand your argument, "The climate changes without human involvement, ergo humans aren't changing the climate" is deeply flawed, right?
 
buju b said:
To further Rifleman's point...
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For as long as humanity has existed, we have had death. No one lives forever. This has always been so. My actions will not change that. This is why I spend my days smoking crack and eating cheeseburgers.
 
I asked if Global Warming was real to a group of scientists. And the answer I got was consider this the entire Earth was frozen at one point in history and we have been melting down ever since. (that explanation just made sense)

That does not mean that destroying our environment doesn't matter. All they are saying is the Ice Sheets melting might be inevitable in the long run.

They were more concerned about protecting the rainforests in the Amazon which is a crucial for human survival.

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/southamerica/brazil/placesweprotect/amazon.xml
 
TheRifleman said:
I asked if Global Warming was real to a group of scientists. And the answer I got was consider this the entire Earth was frozen at one point in history and we have been melting down ever since. (that explanation just made sense)

That does not mean that destroying our environment doesn't matter. All they are saying is the Ice Sheets melting might be inevitable in the long run.

They were more concerned about protecting the rainforests in the Amazon which is a crucial for human survival.

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/southamerica/brazil/placesweprotect/amazon.xml
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The survival of the Amazon partially hinges on the climate not swinging too hot...
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
The survival of the Amazon partially hinges on the climate not swinging too hot...
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They mentioned the protection from man burning them down.

The hot and cold determined by nature is the reality we can't do much about it. If its our time to leave this planet then our time is up.
 
This is the most telling measure for those who have taken a modicum of science:

Bpiomas_plot_daily_heff.2sst.png
 
How is it that most people seem to get the up and down trends of a rising or falling stock market (i.e. one day, month, year, does not a stable trend make) but yet cannot understand that a one year positive trend in the climate does not mean that the climate problem is fixing itself. A clear case of selective thinking.

cca
 
cca said:
How is it that most people seem to get the up and down trends of a rising or falling stock market (i.e. one day, month, year, does not a stable trend make) but yet cannot understand that a one year positive trend in the climate does not mean that the climate problem is fixing itself. A clear case of selective thinking.

cca
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+1

It's very simple - the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, when looked at over 100,000 years, has spiked exponentially since the start of the industrial revolution. It continues to increase to unprecedented levels. This in itself constitutes global climate change - it's effects are far reaching and indisputable.
 
Since I can't find a thread devoted solely to climate change / rising sea levels / the End of Times, I'll post here.

My column on FEMA's proposed floodplain maps and what it means for Boston property owners.

New Flood Insurance Maps Will Raise Costs for Many Residents
FEMA’s new maps will result in higher insurance premiums for many Boston property owners.
By John A. Keith | Boston Magazine | Real Estate | August 6, 2014 2:04 pm

Talk to Brian Swett for half an hour and you’ll come away thinking you should quit your job and spend your time making preparations for when disaster strikes.

Swett is the City of Boston’s Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space, so he knows a thing or two about climate change, rising sea waters, and the increasing chance of inland flooding. According to Swett, there’s the potential for area sea levels to rise 6 to 16 inches by mid-century and by 2 to 4 feet by the year 2100. That would put much of downtown Boston under water.

The good news is, according to him, just about all of Boston is above sea level right now, so rising tides aren’t making much of difference. The bad news is that water comes in two forms: seawater from the ocean and freshwater from the sky, and we haven’t done much thus far to prepare for inland flooding.

It’s an important topic right now. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is in the process of revising flood maps to reflect current flood risks in coastal areas nationwide. Flood maps show the high‐risk areas where there is at least a 1 percent annual chance of flooding.

FEMA’s maps matter because they are used by lenders when determining whether property owners are required to take out flood insurance policies. If FEMA decides you live in a floodplain, you’re going to have to take out a flood insurance policy, and that can be costly.

The goal is to accurately predict where floods may happen in the future. FEMA previously updated its maps in 2009; its new approach in 2013 was to make it more active and predictive—in other words, the 500-year flood is now the 100-year flood. At the same time, FEMA needs to raise money for its depleted insurance fund, which is currently running a $20 billion deficit. It’s doing so by updating its maps, which will hopefully predict where future floods may happen.

Preliminary maps were released for Suffolk County by FEMA last fall. A 90 statutory appeal/comment period began in May and ends August 25. During this period, the public may comment on or appeal the mapping analysis by presenting in written form any scientific or technical data supporting their position. So far, the city has received an appeal from just one Boston resident.

The city has the option of filing an appeal itself and, according to Swett, officials are considering it, but even if it does, there’s no guarantee that FEMA will allow revised maps to be drawn.

Based on a review of the proposed maps, here are some of the locations and properties in Boston that FEMA believes are at risk of flooding sometime in the future:

* Pleasure Bay (Castle Island)
* Newmarket Square & South Bay (South of Boston City Hospital)
* The Fens
* North Station / TD Garden / Bulfinch Triangle
* All of Lower Broadway below Dorchester Street, from West Fourth Street to Andrew Square
* The Seaport District (all of it, save for the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center)
* Bunker Hill Community College
* The Financial District near International Place, including East India Wharf and the site of the proposed Chiofaro tower

Boston doesn’t stand still. Landfill projects during the 19th and 20th centuries and, more-recently, the depression of the Central Artery, have affected water flows. Large parts of Boston are on filled tidelands and tides didn’t used to get as high as they do today. The city is vulnerable, and over history, we’ve long dealt with issues of rising water (the floods of the mid-1800s, the Blizzard of ’78, Kenmore station in 1996, and the South End in 1999, to name a few). And many experts say that it’s not a matter of “if,” but a matter of “when” we’ll be hit again.

Boston residents can take many steps to educate themselves about the effects of climate change, rising ocean levels and what the new FEMA flood maps may mean for them. A great place to start is the City of Boston’s Floodplain Maps website.

How concerned is Swett that the city is going to be it with a major storm? He took out a flood insurance policy the last time he bought a home in the South End.
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Other option beyond gigantic seawall brought up by the BBC.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29761274
26 October 2014 Last updated at 20:13 ET

How Boston is rethinking its relationship with the sea
By Joanna Jolly BBC News, Boston

Sea levels are rising, the land is sinking. It's going to become a big problem for some cities on the US East Coast, so in Boston people are thinking the unthinkable - copying Venice and Amsterdam, and becoming a city of canals.

Two years ago, when the still vicious tail-end of Hurricane Sandy slammed into Boston, it was luck rather than planning that saved the city's streets from deep floods.

If it had hit four hours earlier, during the full-moon high tide, it is likely a storm surge would have inundated the city, submerging its low-lying areas under several feet of water.

The narrow escape concentrated minds, because there's another problem threatening to overwhelm the city's flood defences - climate scientists are predicting a sea-level rise on the US east coast of up to six feet (2m) by the end of the century.
Map of US north east coast

On top of this, Boston has seen an increase in rain and snow over the past few decades and has to contend with the fact that the whole of the US East Coast is sinking as the West Coast around the San Andreas Fault rises.

This is why Boston's city planners and architects are contemplating the radical idea of turning its most historic district - the elegant 19th Century terraced houses of the Back Bay - into a network of canals.

"Much of the model has been how do we keep the water out? Everybody's afraid of the water," says Dennis Carlberg, sustainability director at Boston University and co-chair of Boston's sea-level rise committee.

"So we wanted to turn that conversation on its head and say, well what if we let water in? How can we make life better in Boston by bringing water in?"
Clarendon Street without canal Clarendon Street as it is today, and (top of page) with added canal

The canal idea was floated when architects, developers, real estate experts and business owners were brought together in May to discuss ways of preserving the city's buildings in this watery cityscape of the future.

"It can't be that we provide a giant dam at the Boston harbour and solve all our problems that way," says Boston's Chief of Environment, Energy and Open Space, Brian Swett.

"The way we solve this has to be vibrant, liveable, exciting and enhance our quality of life."

One of the vibrant solutions that came out of that brain-storming session in May, hosted by non-profit organisation the Urban Land Institute, was to turn Boston into the Venice of the US north-east.

The canals would criss-cross the streets of the Back Bay - a neighbourhood of Boston which was actually a tidal bay before it began to be filled in and built on 150 years ago.

Its rows of four to five storey brownstone houses arranged in a grid pattern were immortalised in the writings of Henry James and are considered to be the best preserved examples of 19th Century urban design in America.

This is also one of the most expensive places to live in New England, with a five-storey town house selling for $15-20m. Even a one-bedroom basement flat costs $1m.
Back Bay houses

"Currently the Back Bay streets are about four feet above high tide, so if the sea level rises as predicted, they would be under water part time by the end of the century," says Harvard Business School's John Macomber, who was brought in to assess the financial implications of the Urban Land Institute's ideas.

"If the sea level rises higher than that, the city would look a lot like it did in the time of George Washington," he says referring to a time when Beacon Hill, at the eastern edge of the Back Bay, was an island connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus.

The canals would mitigate sea-level rise by draining water into lower-lying back alleys and some main streets in an alternating pattern which would end at the major thoroughfare of Boylston Street, which has a subway line underneath it.
Map of canals in the Back Bay

It's a solution to climate change which has the potential to make the historic district even more attractive, if it works. But there is a problem.

"If you compare Boston to Venice or Amsterdam, the difference is they have very small tidal ranges," says John Macomber.

"The tide change in Boston is about eight feet a day, so the canals would be either high part of the time or low part of the time. So we would have to decide whether they would be really deep or tidal," he says.

The canals would also have to contend with freezing temperatures in winter, but it seems that, unlike Amsterdam's, they may not be suitable for skating on.

"The question is whether in a climate where it can snow for six months of the year you want canals that are always open and partly full of slush, sand and salt," says Macomber.

A less ambitious solution to sea-level rise would be simply to shore up the foundations of Back Bay houses and make sure important infrastructure, such as electrical and mechanical equipment, was lifted up above the likely level of any flooding.

This kind of solution may have to be implemented in many of Boston's districts not just the Back Bay.
Storrow Drive Storrow Drive would become the Storrow Canal under the Urban Land Institute plan

Last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) changed its 100-year flood zone map which indicates areas likely to be affected by extreme flooding to include many more properties in the city.

"We've looked at raising the ground floor elevation as much as possible," says architect Amy Korte, who is working on building design in Boston's up-and-coming Innovation District.

"We asked how do we raise critical equipment and create a new vision for what good urban design can be," she asks.

Another solution would be to re-introduce natural wetland habitats that would act as a sponge for excess water.

"It's a great non-technology natural solution," says Dennis Carlberg.

"As sea level rises, we are going to be losing this natural sponge globally, so trying to add some of it back is an important thing to be paying attention to."

Whether or not the Back Bay becomes the Venice of North America, at the very least this project has helped raised awareness of how much Boston is going to change over the next few decades.

And by including financial planners and business leaders in the brain-storming sessions, those trying to raise awareness of climate change hope to move the argument away from political controversy and on to practicalities.

"If you want property values to stabilise or remain where they are, at some point you need to invest," says Harvard's John Macomber.

"The idea is to find the sweet spot to invest in a sensible way."

He compares this project in Boston to the situation in Florida where, he says, "the high tide at full moon bubbles up through the storm drains and yet it's not useful in a political environment to say anything is happening".

Boston's Chief of Environment, Brian Swett, says the evidence is clear and the city cannot afford to look the other way.

But, he says, he is not without hope.

"Boston's been around for 400 years and we're going to be around for another 400."

Amsterdam is already more than 700 years old, and Venice more than 1,500. So canals can work - even if they do make it more difficult to park.
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some pics from the article

_78515825_clarendon_canal624.jpg

_78515827_canal_graphic_urbanlandinst.jpg
 
^^^The "Boston as Venice" thing is the Hyperloop of flood planning. It propagates easily in the Media echo chamber but is going nowhere in reality.

Meanwhile harbor-perimeter barriers are at work in Holland, London, St Petersburg, and by 2016, Venice. They are a workable technology with estimable costs and construction times, and are where we should have moved immediately after superstorm Sandy (Venice started its barrier after a 1996 storm).
 
Yeah, it's a fun thought experiment, but it's not ever happening, nor should it.
 
Arlington said:
^^^The "Boston as Venice" thing is the Hyperloop of flood planning. It propagates easily in the Media echo chamber but is going nowhere in reality.

Meanwhile harbor-perimeter barriers are at work in Holland, London, St Petersburg, and by 2016, Venice. They are a workable technology with estimable costs and construction times, and are where we should have moved immediately after superstorm Sandy (Venice started its barrier after a 1996 storm).
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+1
 
I wholeheartedly agree.

Linking the islands around Boston and fortifying our beaches in preparation for another super storm is the only way to provide the City of Boston with any kind of safety from complete shutdown during another big storm.
 
schwein said:
I wholeheartedly agree.

Linking the islands around Boston and fortifying our beaches in preparation for another super storm is the only way to provide the City of Boston with any kind of safety from complete shutdown during another big storm.
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Besides, the canal system misses the point that you still need someplace to drain the canals. And with sea level rise, that means pumping the water uphill, past the missing harbor barrier (which has to be there to hold the higher water level back).
 
The canal idea is lacking any seriousness, and the only reason it's getting press is because it's weird and includes freaking out about climate change.

The flood threat doesn't come from the Charles (we can just make the dam higher and higher if we need to), it comes from the Harbor, which is not the focus of these canals. The Back Bay is threatened by rain events, and by 100 year storm surges that could top the Charles River Dam. These threats can be addressed by smart ground water drainage policies (like what they're doing with the Muddy River), and shoring up the Dam. These canals are a gimmick to start a conversation that will end at "seawall". The Dutch have the solution - but it's the seawall, not the canals.
 
^^ Fantastic article! Thank you for sharing it, Shepard.
 
Chicago did the same thing to mitigate their flooding problems. Raise the roads. Let private owners raise their buildings... or not. I believe there are still some historic buildings in Chicago where the street entrance is on what was originally the second floor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago

I think there are a few roads here and there in and around Boston that might need to be elevated a few feet eventually to deal with a few feet of sea level rise. Then private owners can decide if they want or need to raise their homes and buildings
 
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