Monday, 14 April 2008
Anticipating Rising Sea Levels - and Civil Engineers' Role
I recently received a Request for Proposal from Worchester County, Md. Worchester County is the easternmost county in Maryland and its entire eastern border is the Atlantic Ocean. It includes the Assateague National Seashore Park, a significant barrier island along the coast of Maryland. One of Maryland’s most popular resorts is Ocean City, which also sits on a barrier island.
The objective of the county’s study is the reality that it may face significant additional storm damage and inundation as sea levels continue to rise. The county experienced a one-foot rise during the past century. Specifically, the study should address options for local responses, advantages and disadvantages of these responses, experience with other jurisdictions’ responses to sea-level rise and recommendations for sea-level/global warming responses.
In addition to the results, the study should address the range of potential sea-level rise, the probability of each rise scenario, the recommendation of scenarios for analytical purposes, the universe of local responses and a recommended county response.
Considerable attention has been given to potential sea-level rise and its possible consequences. A soon-to-be published book, “World Scientific Handbook on Coastal and Ocean Engineering,” will have a chapter on sea level rise describing major implications to coastal engineering and management. Maryland's stretch of U.S. coastline is actually identifying global warming and sea-level rise as major issues and is attempting to develop response scenarios. Clearly, there is a role for civil engineers to play in providing guidance and assistance to our coastal counties and municipalities. I am concerned that much of this effort will not be done by civil engineers, but more by land use planners.
I recently learned that Seattle is developing plans in anticipation of sea level rise. I would be curious to know if any of you have seen similar proposal requests from your local jurisdictions or municipalities.