New research on adaptation to climate change in the US and Australia

Sys-con.com: Coastal regions should take steps now to prepare for storm surges, fires, sea level rise, and other disruptions associated with global climate change and extreme weather events, according to new research by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Resilient Coastal City Regions: Planning for Climate Change in the United States and Australia, edited by Edward J. Blakely, honorary professor at the U.S. Studies Centre, University of Sydney, and former recovery czar in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, and Armando Carbonell, senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute and chairman of the Department of Planning and Urban Form, includes nine case studies and models for adaptation response, with a focus on the impacts of changes in climate on human welfare and the integrity of ecosystems.

The focus is on coastal regions in the United States and Australia, but the aim of the volume is to suggest adaptation and mitigation initiatives applicable throughout the world. A recent story in the New York Times surveyed how some 3.7 million Americans along the coastline are threatened by sea level rise.

"We are humbly aware that this is only an initial response to a challenge with a magnitude of potential impacts never before experienced in human history, a challenge that will test our ability to work together at every scale," said Carbonell.

The case studies for adaptation responses are from New York City, the Southeastern Atlantic Coast States, New Orleans, Los Angeles–San Diego, and San Francisco in the U.S.; and in Australia from Melbourne, Sydney, South East Queensland, and Perth. Initiatives range from reconfiguring ecosystems and banning development in the wake of devastating fires in Melbourne; to creating one super-agency to manage water supplies in Los Angeles and San Diego; to the concept of "strategic retreat" of infrastructure, housing, and other assets vulnerable to storm surge and flooding in New York and Connecticut....

The North Cove at Battery Park City in Manhattan, shot by Gryffindor, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license