Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care
Excerpts;
It is preposterous to build in areas that are bound to flood. So why are real estate companies still doing it..?
Read Full Article, Guardian UK
Reuters’ Water’s Edge Report Part I & Part II (09-19-2014)
Despite laws intended to curb development where rising seas pose the greatest threat, Reuters finds that government is happy to help the nation indulge in its passion for beachfront living…
Miami Beach Sees Rising Seas as No Threat to Real Estate Boom, For Now; PhysOrg (04-22-2015)
Miami Beach’s condo boom is bubbling hot, with glass towers being built as fast as they can be—even as scientists say rising seas could swamp much of the storied city by the century’s end…
Alabama has been destroying its natural coast, AL Online (03-05-2016)
Californians Fight Over Whether Coast Should Be Rugged or Refined, The New York Times (02-09-2016)
A City Without a Shore: Rem Koolhaas, Dalieh and the Paving of Beirut’s Coast; Guardian UK (03-17-2015)
A development frenzy has wiped out the natural coastline of Lebanon, replacing it with concreted marinas and upscale resorts that are off-limits to the public. Now developers have their eye on the last bit of Beirut waterfront…
Cronulla’s sand dunes survived Mad Max but now face a more insidious threat, Guardian UK (12-28-2015)
The once vast sand dunes in Sydney’s south have been farmed, trimmed down by sandmining, filmed and eroded by wind and rain. Now they face encroaching housing developments…
Gated Communities on the Water Aggravate Flooding in Argentina, IPS News (11-25-2014)
Sea-Level Rise Poses Hard Choice for Two Neighborhoods: Rebuild or Retreat? Take Part (04-25-2015)
La Faute-sur-Mer and l’Aiguillon-sur-Mer beaches, Vendée, France; By Claire Le Guern
The very last day of February 2010. It is 4:00 am. Howling winds, whipping rains, infuriated seas, and eight meter high (26 feet) crashing waves, are muffling the desperate cries for help…4:00 am… Twenty nine human lives are being swept away, drowned in the frigid and salty ocean waters. They were in their sleep, in their beds, in the comfort of their home. They did not understand, they could not react, most of them too old, too frail, or much too little to run for safety and climb on the rooftops, like most of the survivors did…
When daylight unveiled the disaster, French Prime Minister François Fillon held an emergency cabinet meeting and afterward called the storm a “national catastrophe.” French President Nicolas Sarkhozy, declared: “We have to find out how families in France in the 21st-century can be surprised in their sleep and drowned in their own houses.” Mr. Sarkozy added, “We have to shed light as urgently as possible on this unacceptable and incomprehensible tragedy.”
As much as this tragedy is utterly unacceptable, it is all too comprehensible and sadly, previously announced by warnings from many scientists, locals, and even more relevantly by an official 2008 report from the Vendée Equipment Department, DDE. The risks of marine submersion were known to the Vendée DDE, which strongly addressed and questioned coastal safety, citing in particular the fragile sea walls in L’Aiguillon-sur-Mer and La Faute-sur-Mer, as well as their existing location and development in flood-prone areas. “There is no doubt about the vulnerability of the Vendée coast to marine submersion”…
Rebuilding the Shores, Increasing the Risks, The New York Times (04-09-2013)
“The Beaches Are Moving,” A Video featuring Orrin Pilkey, PhD
World famous coastal geologist Orrin H. Pilkey takes us to the beach and explains why erosion has become a problem…
We Need to Retreat From the Beach, An Op Ed by Orrin H. Pilkey
