Wait or be flexible in planning for sea level rise, experts tell Florida planners

Bruce Ritche in the Florida Current: Plans to address sea level rise should be flexible and some could wait about five years for science to be more precise, experts said Thursday at a workshop in Tallahassee for planners and other state and local officials.

Environmental groups have opposed government flood insurance and other programs that they contend encourage development in flood-prone coastal areas. Gov. Rick Scott supports moving some policyholders out of Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to reduce state liability, but bills doing so failed to pass in the 2012 legislative session.

Florida Sea Grant and the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve hosted the workshop, “Adaptive Planning for Coastal Change — Legal Issues for Local Government." Most in the audience of about 45 at the Capital Circle Office Center were state or local planners.

...Gary Mitchum, a University of South Florida physical oceanographer, said sea levels in Florida could rise from 1 meter to 2 meters by 2100 because of ice melting and warming seas caused by increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, causing the "greenhouse effect" and climate change.

But he also stressed that there are uncertainties about the predictions. He suggested planners should wait until revised predictions are issued within about five years -- or until then adopt the low end of the range into their coastal planning. "The science is changing rapidly," Mitchum said. "So where ever possible don't commit to a plan that you don't have to."....

Flooding in Doral, Florida on May 22, 2012 from the precursor to Tropical Storm Beryl, shot by Cyclonebiskit, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license