Ed Blakely says planers should be sent to jail for allowing development in areas we all know are at great risk: I advance this argument to get the attention of our planning profession, which has been complacent and diffident when we know better. We blame our political masters. But an engineer who knowingly gives bad […]
Tag Archives | planning
Where do Coastal Smart Growth and Hazard Resilience Meet?
Posted on September 27, 2012
Hot off the press (yes, I’m aging myself with that phrase): Achieving Hazard-Resilient Coastal & Waterfront Smart Growth. What is it? Last summer, NOAA, EPA and a few state Sea Grant programs assembled a mess of experts on smart growth and a mess of experts on natural hazards and got the two to talk about […]
Florida County Incorporates Climate Change in their Comprehensive Plan
Posted on September 17, 2012
Last week, Broward County’s commissioners voted to incorporate climate change into their comp plan despite substantial pushback. Read the article for how the battle was won.
NOAA’s Coastal and Waterfront Smart Growth Site Updated with More Examples
Posted on August 7, 2012
Been a while since you checked out NOAA’s Coastal and Waterfront Smart Growth site? They’ve updated it with new case studies: see what’s updated via their Getting Started page.
Final Version of Coastal Best Development Practices Manual Released
Posted on July 23, 2012
This winter we mentioned an earlier draft of the Best Practices Manual for Development in Coastal Louisiana, but the final version is out now, and it looks great. You can find it on the project’s website. Even if you’re not in Louisiana, it’s worth a look.
New Tool to Easily View Future Sea Levels
Posted on July 16, 2012
The United State Army Corps of Engineers has released a handy tool for calculating future sea levels based on models or rates that you pick. The process couldn’t be easier. Head over to their Comprehensive Evaluation of Projects with Respect to Sea-Level Change page. Either enter the rates you’d like to use, or select from […]
New Inundation Analysis Tool Released
Posted on May 30, 2012
There’s a lot of evidence that the future in coastal areas will look a lot like the past, only with more bad times. That once a century event might be more like once a decade by 2100. And brace for that “once a decade storm” — it may soon hit every few years. If this […]
NOAA Shares Tools for Understanding and Addressing Coastal Inundation
Posted on March 27, 2012
The NOAA Coastal Services Center, as part of their Digital Coast program, has assembled a Coastal Inundation Toolkit. The new “Visualize” section allows users to learn how different types of visualizations can help communities understand their inundation risks and vulnerabilities. The “Picture It” page offers tools and local examples of how photos, maps, and mapping […]
San Francisco Struggles to Protect and Adapt to a Changing Shoreline
Posted on March 26, 2012
As an El Niño winter tears away its shoreline, San Francisco tries to figure out how or whether to protect homes, a $220 million wastewater treatment plant, and a world-famous road. The question facing at least eight local, state and federal agencies boils down to this: With California officials expecting climate change to raise sea […]
Growing Agreement that Taxpayers Shouldn’t Subsidize Risky Coastal Development
Posted on March 14, 2012
From today’s New York Times: Insurance companies got out of the business of writing flood insurance decades ago, so much of the risk from sea level rise is expected to fall on the financially troubled National Flood Insurance Program, set up by Congress, or on state insurance pools. Federal taxpayers also heavily subsidize coastal development […]