Coastal Overtopping

"Low-lying coastal regions host nearly 10% of the world's population. In addition to ongoing erosion and rising sea levels, these areas and their unique ecosystems are facing destructive hazards, including episodic flooding due to overtopping of natural/artificial protection, as in the case of Hurricane Katrina, which hit the United States in 2005, Cyclone Xynthia in Europe in 2010, and Typhoon Haiyan in Asia in 2013 (the largest tropical cyclone ever measured). These episodic events are expected to become more severe and more frequent due to global warming, while the consequences will also increase due to increased anthropogenic pressure, such as coastal and infrastructure development, rapid urbanization. Although the magnitude and frequency of these events remain uncertain, scientists believe that countries in the tropics will be particularly affected."

Sunny Day Flooding

This happens when there is no rain or storms, but can be caused by king tides. Thanks to climate change, these once-rare occurrences, are becoming yearly, monthly, or even weekly for coastal communities around the world.

Consequences of Flooding & Sea Level Rise

Solutions

• Prevention

  • Flood Prevention Measures

    • SUDS

    • Permeably Surfaces

    • Riparian Zones

    • Water Harvesting

    • Water-Wise Gardening this could include rain gardens or xeriscaping

  • Reduce Emissions

    • Transition Away from Fossil Fuels

    • Use/Provide Public Transportation

    • Produce/Consume Less Meat

    • Insulate Buildings

    • End Light Pollution

    • Improve Energy Efficiency/Storage 

  • Prevent or Slow Ice Melt

• Planned Retreat

  • Ban Building in Flood Planes

  • Buy Out Programs & Plans for Existing Settlements

• Adaptation

  • Floating Buildings

  • Flood-Proof Public Transportation

  • Raised Buildings & Infrastructure

Pollution Major storms and floods can damage buildings, overload sewers, farms, and chemical storage facilities. Waste is picked up from damaged buildings, road ways, and tipped bins sending a huge array of unknown chemicals, bacteria, and other microbes into people's drinking water, soil, and air.

Increased Illegal Sewage Releases

Careful Choice in Relocation/Building Site Choices

Coastal Defenses

Examples of Green Spaces

Green spaces can perform a number of services, and incorporating green spaces in flood prevention plans can even boost their success and biodiversity.

Create and Enforce Legislation Banning New Developments in Flood Zones

In areas without this type of legislation, many people have been sold home in known flood zones, within 100 year flood zones, and other unsuitable places. These homes are prone to repeated flooding which can push families into a poverty situation where they are unable to sell their homes (because they flood repeatedly) which leaves them without the funds to leave or keep rebuilding. Governments need to offer buy-out programs and work with conservation organizations to clear the badly-placed buildings. The land can function as both wild space and as permeable land to help absorb future flood waters, protecting nearby communities.

Pollution Sites Must be Maintained and kept far from Places that are expected to experience Flooding based on history or the proposed flood/sea level rise forecasts.

Sewage Facilities Need to be Revamped to Withstand or Work with Nature

Illegal sewage releases are becoming more common thanks to more frequent flooding and larger populations than some of these sewage facilities were designed to serve. Sewage releases during floods threatens water safety, and can spread deadly diseases to rescue workers, flood victims, wildlife, and domestic animals.

Finance & Facilitate Systems to Recycle Water

"Recycling greywater frees up more finished water for other uses, expanding supply and decreasing the need to discharge into receiving waters. Receiving water quality limitations may increase due to more frequent droughts. Therefore, to limit wastewater discharges, use of reclaimed water in homes and businesses should be encouraged." - https://www.epa.gov/arc-x/climate-impacts-water-utilities#tab-3

Practice Conjunctive Water Use

"Conjunctive use involves the coordinated, optimal use of both surface water and groundwater, both intra- and inter-annually. Aquifer storage and recovery is a form of conjunctive use. For example, a utility may store some fraction of surface water flows in aquifers during wet years and withdraw this water during dry years when the river flow is low. Depending on whether natural or artificial aquifer recharge is employed, the required infrastructure may include percolation basins and injection wells." - https://www.epa.gov/arc-x/climate-impacts-water-utilities#tab-3

Plant Based Shift

Altering Our Farming Priorities via Diet Shifts, Wiser Distribution of Farming Subsidies to Help Farmers Transition to Sustainable Alternatives Away from Those Causing the Most Water Stress and Pollution How we raise our food is deeply tied to water shortages, flooding, water pollution, and poor land management including deforestation and draining wetlands to create artificial grazing land can add significant, costly complications to these issues. With most of our land used to raise livestock which give a relatively tiny percentage of protein and calories in return, critically rethinking our dietary systems and land use practices could relieve significant amount of room to rehome people, grow enough food for our growing population, AND perhaps even return damaged land to the wild for better flood mitigation. Below are some key issues that can provide the most impactful returns at the least cost to consumers or policy makers.

Return Land Drained for Grazing to it's Natural State

Reducing the consumption of animal products such as beef, wool, dairy, etc. will help reduce or even reverse our encroachment into wild places that traditionally acted as sponged for rain water. Some of these areas were actively pumped dry to allow grazing at the expense of valuable wetlands and forests, then over time compaction from animal hooves had mad many of these places suffer from increased erosion and soil compaction which stops water from penetrating. This means that fields can become prime causes of pollution and erosion, adding to flooding problems instead of working naturally as undisturbed wild places to do mitigate flooding.

Grazing uses the most land, is less efficient, meaning that "grass-fed" livestock take longer to reach slaughter-size while using more resources, and generally does not provide all of the benefits often touted by the livestock industry. For example carbon sequestration through well managed grazing, even in the best circumstances cannot reach a point of neutrality. The manure ends up directly on the ground where it can wash into water ways without any type of processing to reduce disease risk. Grazing is also the greatest cause of deforestation, which is problematic since trees are vital to water sequestration, fighting erosion, and reducing flood risk.

Ending subsidies to these operations would help prevent further destruction and expansion from this sector, while programs designed to support ranchers as they convert to plant-based agriculture will ensure that these people are supported in their time of need, while food and water security is ensured for everyone.

Vertical Farms

These are perhaps best known for reducing water use in food production, however they can also provide resiliency against major events such as flooding. Crops left soaking in wet soil can become weak, or simply die and rot which threatens us with food insecurity while farmers and farm workers lose valuable income. Vertical farms are best suited for the types of crops eaten by humans: leafy greens, herbs, as well as fruits including berries, tomatoes, and cucumbers. They are not suited for crops commonly fed to livestock such as corn or other grains.

Eliminate Feed Lots, Factory Farms, and Manure Lagoons in Flood Prone Areas

Tools & Apps

Water Pumping

The pumping of water takes a larger amount than many people realize. Pumping ground water for agricultural, industry, or public use, moving it between facilities, etc. all require energy since water is a fairly heavy substance.

• STEEP "is a free Excel-based reference guide that can be used to make system assessments and identify potential areas for energy use savings in existing or planned water supply and wastewater facility projects."

Tools

• Greener LAND "This tool helps you decide which landscape interventions are best suited towards landscape restoration for the landscape you operate in. Start by selecting the characteristics of your landscape on your left."

North America

USA

• Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper "Jumpstart community discussions about local coastal flooding hazards by developing maps that show the people, places, and natural resources at risk."

Maps & Tools

Maps by Region Check specific State and Country pages to see if there are more specific maps, tools, projects, and groups for specific areas. If you have suggestions, we would love to hear what else we can include. Some states and countries have more detailed watershed, county, and city level maps. Other topic sections such as plastic, agriculture may be worth checking to understand how pollution enters our water ways, and how industries might endanger water sources without proper regulation, mitigation, or clean up systems to protect communities from these threats.

North America

USA

• Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper "Jumpstart community discussions about local coastal flooding hazards by developing maps that show the people, places, and natural resources at risk."

• USA Flood Factor Interactive map can be used to find specific addresses, and see how historical flooding as affected existing roads and neighborhoods. Please scroll down in page to find the partial US map, or type in an address and scroll down to find the interactive map.

• NOAA Flood Map Check specific State and Country pages to see if there are more specific maps, tools, projects, and groups in your area. If you have suggestions, we would love to hear what else we can include. Some states have watershed, county, and city level maps. Other sections such as plastic, agriculture may be worth checking to understand how pollution enters our water ways, and how industries might endanger water sources without proper regulation, mitigation, or clean up systems to protect communities from these threats. 

• Stormwater Management and Restoration Tracking (SMART) Tool (Interactive) Tool tracks storm water management practices in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed which spans, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia

• USGS Ground Water Depletion in the United States 1900-2008 (PDF) understanding which area are suffering worst from ground water depletion can help us build better water management systems which could convert flood and rain waters back into aquifers. This would both ensure drinking and irrigations for future generations, as well as stabilizing soil which increasingly threatens building, road, and dam foundations in water-depleted regions.

North America

USA

• Anthropocene Alliance (A2) "has almost 300 member-communities in 41 U.S. states and territories. They are impacted by flooding, toxic waste, wildfires, and drought and heat — all compounded by reckless development and climate change. The consequence is broken lives and a ravaged environment.

The goal of A2 is to help communities fight back. We do that by providing them organizing support, scientific and technical guidance, and better access to foundation and government funding. Most of all, our work consists of listening to our frontline leaders. Their experience, research, and solidarity guide everything we do, and offer a path toward environmental and social justice.

Supported by outstanding partner organizations with expertise in engineering, hydrology, public health, planning, and the law, A2 leaders have successfully halted developments in climate-vulnerable areas; implemented nature-based hazard mitigation strategies; organized home buyouts; and pushed for clean-ups at superfund sites, toxic landfills, and petrochemical plants.

We support everyone we can, but our special priority is people who have suffered the worst environmental impacts for the longest time; that usually means low-income, Black, Latinx, Native American and other underserved communities.

To learn about our policies, read our A 10-Point Platform on Climate Change."

• Chesapeake Bay Foundation

New York

• The Office of Resilient Homes and Communities "strives to address communities’ most urgent needs, while also encouraging the identification of innovative and enduring solutions to strengthen the State’s infrastructure and critical systems. The office utilizes approximately $4.4 billion in flexible funding made available by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program to concentrate aid to four main areas. Paired with additional federal funding that has been awarded to other State agencies, the CDBG-DR program is enabling homeowners, small businesses and entire communities to build back even better than before. And in a State already known for its great resiliency and can-do spirit, the efforts are paving the way for a tremendous comeback– one that will reinvigorate New York and better prepare it for future extreme weather events that come its way."

Texas

• Bayouland Conservancy "We preserve land along streams for flood control, clean water, and wildlife."

Grants & Funding

Asia

• Livable Cities: Financing Partnership Facility "The urban operations of ADB benefits from the support of notable trust funds, which are collectively referred to as the Urban Financing Partnership Facility. Under this umbrella, strategic, long-term, multi-partner investments on innovative urban solutions are implemented. These investments help to achieve the vision of livable cities." These include:

  • ASEAN Australia Smart Cities Trust Fund

  • Cities Development Initiative for Asia

  • Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund (UCCRTF) eligible countries include Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and Vietnam.

  • Urban Environmental Infrastructure Fund (UEIF)