Don’t go hard — A critique on hard infrastructure in floodplains

Civilization has always used civil engineering, controlling and manipulating the elements to solve problems for society, especially those associated with water. Think dams, bridges, levees, and reservoirs. Practically anything and everything that separates us from nature is related to civil engineering, even the homes that shield us from the sun and the rain. Dams can generate electricity and theoretically contains water as to prevent flooding downstream. Bridges allow for us to cross over a body of water to get from one landmass to another. And so on.

Floodplain Development

The mindset of domination has always been used to get us closer and closer to waterfronts by developing lands near floodplains and coasts. Ideally, it gets us as close as possible to water without being endangered by it. This was the mindset that was employed in the US in the 20th century, a position, both in place and in mind, that we are starting to discover is dangerous and untenable. 10,000 new dams were built between 1920 and 1950 and 40,000 between 1950 and 1980 to control the many rivers and streams of North America. Dams are mainly built to contain water and generate energy, sometimes completely stopping flow downstream and causing significant ecological harm.

Many levees were also built, but many are undocumented so the number is not exact, totaling around 100,000 miles of levees. A good portion of these levees are aging and are not equipped to withstand the rigors of today, due to over-development on adjacent property and changing river paths. Containing the river both raises the river level as well as the sedimentation over time, eventually making an unattended levee less useful.

However, as we built more dams and levees, and started to develop along floodplains, granting reassurance of our safety, we didn’t realize that we were stripping the environment of it’s natural functions. These functions include flood control and water quality maintenance.

When floodplains are in their natural state they look like untouched forest, having lots of trees, shrubs, grass and other plants. When a river floods, the water passes through these green areas are collectively slowed down by plants acting as obstacles, and by healthy soil absorbing the water. This absorption also filters water, so that when it gets returned into the groundwater reservoirs much of the pollutants collected on the surface are no longer present. When the floodplains are urbanized, removing trees and replacing them with asphalt and conrete, these functions are no longer present, meaning when floods occur they often are more severe due to the lack of natural protection they provide.

Such was the case for Valmeyer, when the entire town had to be relocated after the Great Flood of 1993 destroyed the town. But that was just one town. The extent of the damage to the area surrounding Mississippi and Missouri Rivers totaled 20 billion dollars, some areas being flooded for more than 6 months. It had a relatively low death toll of 32 people, but easily cost thousands of people their entire homes and possessions.

This McDonalds in Festus, Missouri was 1.5 miles from the river and 30 ft above the river

This is not to say that the flood would have been avoided if there were no dams or levees. However, what I am saying is that the dams create an illusion of security for people where natural variations are bound to happen. These variations only are exacerbated by the loss of natural floodplain functions as well as climate change, which increases precipitation in some areas. Without them, there wouldn’t any property around the floodplain to begin with, completely removing the risk of the loss of capital, and more importantly, human lives.

Coastal Floodplain Development

Along American coasts a similar attitude towards development was encouraged because developers knew that people would flock to these areas for the opportunity to have a beach house. But they weren't afforded the same amount of infrastructure that their inland compatriots had. For some the reason was out of a lack of necessity, but for others out of a lack of funding.

When Hurricane Sandy hit more than 375,000 had to be evacuated from homes that were situated in low elevations and 300,000 homes were lost, totaling for a $19 billion in damage to the city. 60% of these homes lost were in Queens while Staten Island homes accounted for 30%. 42 people died with 23 of those living in SI.

A map color coding where inundation (flooding) occurred with darker colors representing higher elevations of flooding.

There are several solutions to mitigate future losses… One is to continue building on the floodplains but with more infastructure to protect against the sea. Such a solution could include building raised homes that would make rising sea levels at least temporarily a non-issue. It could also mean building more infrastructure like seawalls to protect existing homes and potential homes that would be built in coastal floodplains. This is the path that Mayor DeBlasio seems to be taking this when he announced that he would be investing $145 million into renovating the Rockaway Beach Boardwalk. This pride and strength in the face of adversity is shown in the following quote by Council Member Donovan Richards. “Today’s announcement of $145 million sends a bold message that city government isn’t retreating from investing in coastal communities anytime soon,”.

The more viable solution, as far as minimizing future loss of capital and life, is to simply move away from these coastal areas. Granted that’s not always a possibility, but the US federal government has provided many homeowners with opportunities to participate in the FEMA buyout program, which fully reimburses homeowners for their homes so that they can move to a theoretically less flood prone area. The buildings on these properties would then be demolished, and ,whether or not assisted by humans, would eventually return to it’s natural state: a coastal wetland. The coastal wetland would once again perform it’s functions of providing flood protection, erosion control, water quality maintenance, and supporting wildlife.

The increasing amount of climate caused human migration, or “retreat” has been often seen as a failure, mainly due the association of retreat with weakness.This is because of the military context that it is often used in. But if we are caught in combat, who is our combatant? Mother nature, and her evil minions composed of drops of water? If the word retreat is instead re-imagined as an adaption and as a “treatment” perhaps the connotation associated with the word can improve, and the process of relocating people to less flood-prone areas can be more easily accomplished.

This process of retreat is impeded by politicians who often use retreat as a last resort as they would rather implement more costly built defenses such as seawalls and levees, showing again the common representation of water as an intruder that has to be kept out. This clearly shown in the case of the Rockaways renovation project.

An exemplar of such a politician is Mayor Bloomberg who stated in 2013 “As New Yorkers, we cannot and will not abandon our waterfront. It’s one of our greatest assets. We must protect it, not retreat from it.” This is against the wishes the people they are supposed to represent since many support participation in buy-out programs that grant people the financial opportunity to move out of flood-prone areas. For example, post-Sandy Staten Island had the highest participation rate out of the boroughs of NYC with almost 500 SI residents recieving FEMA funds. Many of these residents are happy with the price that they received, as using traditional real estate methods would have made it unlikely that they would receive a fair price for land that risked severe flooding.

Similar relocations is likely to increase as climate change intensifies, but the ability and willingness to relocate is not solely dependent on environmental factors but also on social, political and economic factors. For example, there are those that would be willing to relocate, but are not financially equipped to do so. In this case government assistance as in the case of FEMA is a great model for emulation. Social and political factors can come into play in the case of the rhetoric espoused by politicians like Bloomberg, clearly denigrating proposed solutions of retreat due to the weakness associated with it.

Perhaps now is not the time to be standing firm, acting stubborn and refusing to budge, but the time to cut our losses. Nature is not something to be contained, but something to cooperate with. If we control it now it won’t be long before it comes back with a vengeance. We should act as stewards of the environment rather than it’s masters. If not, our pride in believing that we are able to dominate every organism, environment and climate will come back to hurt us, as it did in Sandy and in the Great Flood of 93'. Retreat is an option, but it’s up to us to lay down our weapons and turn around.