“Taken as a whole, the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time” –Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up jointly by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme to provide an authoritative international statement of scientific opinion on climate change, periodically assessing its causes, consequences and possible responses.
Climate change nowadays is an utmost emergency, unleashing multifarious spin-offs with a worldwide impact. If years ago global climate change still had latent effects, now they have become clearly observable. Temperatures will continue to rise, frost-free seasons (and growing seasons) will lengthen, precipitation patterns will change, the sea level will rise 1-4 feet by 2100, droughts and heat waves are projected to become more and more intense and cold waves less intense everywhere.
It seems evident that corrective measures by countries are needed in order to stop or at least to decelerate the phenomenon: just to mention one, the Paris climate conference (COP21) held in December 2015 was the first-ever universal and legally binding global climate deal adopted by 195 countries in pursuance of the reduction of greenhouse emissions while limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
Floods
There shall be no attempt in creating a hierarchy of natural disasters, since each of them has severe impacts on the natural environment and considerably threatens human lives.
Howbeit, there are some calamities which are considered to be more harmful than others according to the scale of their potential of havoc and disruption.
Floods, namely the abnormal accumulation of water over normally dry land, are caused by the overflow of inland waters or tidal waters, or by an unusual accumulation of water from sources such as heavy rains or dam or levee breaches[1]. At the moment, they are the most common (and among the most deadly) natural disasters in the United States, with an incidence of 38% amounting to a total of $1,011 bn.
A latest study released this month, “ How Climate Change Will Impact Major Cities Across the U.S”[2], charts cities’ risk levels for incurring damage from climate change, such as floods for instance; what surprisingly has been recounted by the study is that the most vulnerable cities are also the least prepared.
What U.S. Cities Facing Climate Disaster Risks Are Least Prepared?
https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/08/climate-impacts-resilient-cities-environmental-justice/596251/
The correlates of readiness and resilience are linked to some factors worth mentioning: wealth, income, inequality, unemployment rates and so on.
As a matter of fact, top 5 low-readiness/ high risk have shown a considerably larger black and Latino population and higher poverty rates, disclosing therefore a direct causality between poverty and vulnerability to climate change.
Flooding Cities: some examples
Still and all, we shall cross the American frontier to shed a light on some other interesting cases.
For the purpose, the Indonesian current situation case seems to be worth of interest.
Since its capital Jakarta continues to sink in the Java Sea, the government and its president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, recently announced their plan of dislocating the capital to the verdant island of Borneo. The interesting thing to notice is how natural disasters can revolutionize the urban planning of a city, or better, of a whole country. In fact, Borneo promises a “greener” future for the country, significantly reducing traffic congestion, overcrowding and air polluting factors. The idea lies in the grand strategy and believed abstraction of making Indonesia’s capital a “forest city”.
Another high risk zone are the Netherlands, whose large parts are situated below the sea level. Climate change effects, namely the aforementioned rising sea levels and heat waves, further exacerbate the threat of flooding for the country.[3]
Since the last devastating flood of the North Sea in 1953 – which hit also England, Scotland and Germany – an elaborate system of dams, sluice gates, storm surge barriers and other protective measures are in place next to the dikes. These are framed within the Delta Program, whose aim is to protect the country against the dreadful threat of floods.
Italy too has had a long history of disaster caused by floods (Polesine in 1951, Florence in 1966, Genoa in 1970, Versilia in 1996, Sarno in 1998, Piedmont both in 1994 and 2000, Friuli in 2003 and the most recent in Apulia in 2005).
The safeguard protection concept has been implemented by establishing the rules responding to the appropriate land management, while identifying the river basin as the basic unit for developing a proper land management plan.
The infographic provided below shows the areas at high hydrogeological critical state per type of disaster (floods, landslides and avalanches).
Source: “Flood Risk Management in Italy: tools for the hydrogeological land planning”[4]
Quite utopically, we could ask ourselves how a flood-proof city would look like then.
An article from The Guardian underlines how recent floods show that it is not just the unprecedented magnitude of storms that can unleash a disaster, indeed massive urbanisation constitutes a significant catalyst in this sense.
Tragic events such as the ones we have just mentioned, shall therefore not only be seen in the light of fatalism, but rather as artificial man-mad disasters.
For the sake of this, many architects and urbanists are pushing creative initiatives for cities that treat stormwater as a resource, rather than a hazard. Just to mention some, the permeable pavements in Chicago or the construction of 16 “Sponge Cities” in China as a solution for the freshwater scarcity and flooding suffered by many cities as a result of urbanization.
To conclude, we have mentioned how natural disasters can constitute a threat, endangering human lives and altering the urban landscape. Will this detrimental ongoing process ever come to a halt? The key then is to increase the readiness of cities to the phenomenon, as in an “urban-smart” metamorphosis, while keeping an eye on preventive measure and impact evaluation.
Sitography:
- https://www.futureagenda.org/insight/flooded-cities
- https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/08/climate-impacts-resilient-cities-environmental-justice/596251/https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flooding-and-climate-change-everything-you-need-know
- https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/
- https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/sep/25/what-flood-proof-city-china-dhaka-houston
- https://www.minambiente.it/sites/default/files/archivio/biblioteca/ds_flood_risk_management_vienna17_18_05_2006.pdf
- https://listwithclever.com/real-estate-blog/top-cities-impacted-climate-change/
- https://ehs.unu.edu/news/news/5-facts-about-dutch-flood-risk-management.html
[1] More information available at : https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flooding-and-climate-change-everything-you-need-know
[2] Eylul Tekin, analyzed risk factors along with each city’s plans to adapt to those weather hazards. More information available at: https://listwithclever.com/real-estate-blog/top-cities-impacted-climate-change/
[3] More information available at: https://ehs.unu.edu/news/news/5-facts-about-dutch-flood-risk-management.html
[4] More information available at : https://www.minambiente.it/sites/default/files/archivio/biblioteca/ds_flood_risk_management_vienna17_18_05_2006.pdf
Source main image: Getty Images, WSJ, 2014
https://blogs.wsj.com/indonesiarealtime/2014/01/19/flooding-in-jakarta-displaces-thousands-amid-continuing-rain/