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Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, Flooding, and Our Actions to Save Our Cities
Rising Sea Levels and Rising Panic
As climate change advances, sea levels begin to dangerously rise alongside it. In the past, the flat and untextured current shoreline protection was adequate for limiting flooding in cities, and preventing more devastating affects of storm surges. However, sea levels have risen 3 inches within just the last 20 years, causing these protective measures to become almost ineffective against overtopping, which will continue to alarmingly increase as time goes on. New York City is becoming determined to take part in the Redesigning Urban Shorelines for Resilience Project to protect the city from flooding and damage due to flooding from storm surges, rising water, and other climate change impacts. Due to the city being very close to current sea levels, it is one of the most vulnerable cities to these dangers. By 2100, NYC will experience sea levels rising by as much as 2 feet, causing large portions of the city to already be submerged underwater if we do not take action.
Seawalls
To oppose the tumultuous and negative effects of this growing issue, there have been a few plans created to prevent and dampen it. Elevated architecture, breakwaters and seawalls have already been utilized. However, there is a large focus on the seawalls with the new Redesigning Urban Shorelines for Resilience project. Pre-existing breakwaters are usually simple, smooth walls that do not have much complexity within them. With the growing expansion and understanding of utilizing seawall geometry, new intricate constructions can be implemented or added onto these pre-existing seawalls to make them much more effective at dissipating wave energy. As a result, with the advancement of this project, we can save the city from future flooding damage, as well as provide a new home for sea creatures in the process!
Seawall Geometry
Intricate designs like the ones above are aiming to allow the water to pass through the models, making the water hit smaller spaces within the design, resulting in decreased wave energy! Future city projects plan to work with designs with hopes of reducing flooding in the city, as well as creating interesting structures that can be interacted with by humans. Seawall geometries are designed in a way that allows them to become habitable by sea creatures!
Wave Tank
Wave tank provides a effective way to test physical models of seawalls. It consists of the wavemaker, the tank, and the wave analysis tools. A piston type wavemaker has been built to create waves. The wavemaker can be controlled through hardware buttons or software graphic user interface on the laptop. The tank is made of acrylic panels of 9" wide, 5' long and 18.5" high. The wave analysis is through a webcam and the computer vision software running on a laptop.
Coastal Simulation
Tools such as ANSYS Discovery, Fluent and OpenFOAM have been used to perform simulations of waves-and-seawalls interactions. It can shorten the design cycles and lower the cost of physical implementations.
To Learn More About the Fight Against Flooding, Explore These Sources Below!
Mini Wave Tank Experiment
Mini Wave Tank Experiment
The Netherlands' Defense
The Netherlands' Defense
Seawall Geometry Example
Seawall Geometry Example
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