Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The unbearable excitement of dredging

Sit down, calm yourself, take a deep breath... and prepare for the most exciting story of our time (sorry-- something about dredging brings out my cruel side).  From the Dredging News Online: The Central Dredging Association (CEDA) has issued a position paper on climate change adaptation and dredging.  CEDA says it is committed to environmentally responsible management of dredging activities and this paper seeks to raise awareness, to help the dredging community prepare for consequences of climate change, and to understand how dredging can contribute to adaptation measures.

...Geographically, this CEDA position paper focuses on northwestern Europe but other parts of the CEDA area may face similar challenges. "Climate change is now a fact," said CEDA. "It is also now widely accepted that human activities are playing a role in the increase of greenhouse gas emissions that have accelerated global warming during the last century, although the significance of the human contribution is still a matter of debate.

"The position paper highlights the main implications of climate change for dredging and discusses potential preparatory and adaptation measures in general terms. "It elaborates on specific climate change issues and adaptation requirements/options in relation to three typical environments in which dredging takes place: open coasts; seaports, estuaries and access channels and inland waters.

"Innovation and flexibility will be crucial factors for successful and sustainable adaptation both in terms of technical solutions and in the regulatory context," states the document....

A barge named Resolution during dredging operations on the Yarra River, Melbourne, shot by Melburnian, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

1 comment:

SteveK said...

Dredging is one of the most important steps to take in stopping and reversing climate degradation. The "lake effect" rains that perform the global cooling function are destroyed as the lakebeds are silted over and the lakes are lost. The aquifer recharge areas are destroyed the same way, killing off wells, boreholes and oases. Weeding and dredging the world's lakes and streams is the way to fight climate degradation, and it can be financed with the biomass of the weeds causing the problems.