Have questions on climate change and its impacts? UF Levin College of Law Professors Thomas T. Ankersen and Alyson Craig Flournoy in the Environmental and Land Use Law Program have answers.
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A: The terms sunny-day flooding and tidal flooding generally refers to flooding that occurs when a high tide causes water to back up in a city’s stormwater system so that it emerges onto the streets from the storm drains rather than operating as it was designed to do – to remove water from the streets. This typically occurs because the stormwater system was not designed to handle tides as extreme as those that the area is currently experiencing. Tides at the full moon and the equinoxes are always the highest, and the most extreme of these are called king tides. This is the time when the worst tidal flooding is most likely to occur. One concern for coastal communities is that as sea level rises, sunny day flooding will worsen and become more frequent, and king tides will become more disruptive and damaging. Reports suggest that this type of flooding is already on the rise.
The terms sunny day flooding and tidal flooding are used to distinguish this types of flooding from the flooding caused by a heavy rainfall or flooding caused by storm surge. When too much rain falls in a short time it can back up into streets from stormwater drains and can flood already soggy areas anywhere in the state. Storm surge describes water pushed by wind and waves from a water body onto shore during a storm. During a hurricane or storm event, flooding from rainfall, tides, and storm surges can combine and cause an even greater impact in coastal areas.
A: Sea-level rise has an impact on all three types of flooding: tidal flooding, flooding from heavy rainfall, and flooding caused by storm surge.
First, let’s consider tidal flooding. Coastal communities’ stormwater systems typically are designed to ensure that rain and flood water from the streets flows into storm drains. These drains connect to a series of underground pipes that carry the water to what’s called an outfall – where the end of the pipe system empties, frequently into coastal waters. These systems generally rely on gravity to ensure that water moves in the proper direction (from the street to the coastal waters and not from the coastal waters to the street). The pipes under the streets are placed at a higher elevation than the outfall.
Here’s where sea-level rise comes in: stormwater systems that were designed for one sea level become challenged as the sea level rises – at a certain sea-level height, gravity makes it less likely water will flow in the right direction and makes it equally possible for a very high tide to flow into the street and onto adjacent properties. The first problems typically happen during the highest tides of the year – spring or equinox tides. Eventually, this may start to happen during high tides on the full moon (which are higher than regular high tides). But at some point, as sea level continues to rise, even ordinary tides could cause tidal flooding. This makes it important to consider sea-level rise projections when assessing likely future risks from this type of flooding.
Next, let’s consider the impact of sea-level rise on flooding caused by heavy rainfall. In heavy rainfall, once again it’s the stormwater system that is meant to remove the rain from the streets and carry it out to an outfall, generally in coastal waters. Heavy rains may temporarily raise the level of coastal waters.
As sea level rises, the elevation difference between the pipes under the streets and the sea level at the outfall is reduced. Even if the coastal waters don’t back up into the streets, the higher sea level at the outfall can create pressure that prevents gravity from moving the water in the pipes out the outfall. The system can become overwhelmed and not operate properly. It may drain, but only at a very slow rate, or it may not be able to drain at all for a period of time during and after the storm. Like water in a tub with a clogged or malfunctioning drain, the floodwaters caused by a heavy rain may be backed up into the streets and onto adjacent properties, while they wait to drain. In the long run, if sea level reaches a certain elevation, the system may fail completely.
Finally, consider a third major source of coastal flooding: storm surge. Storm surge describes the water pushed onto dry land (above the line where a normal tide would reach) as a result of wind and waves produced by a storm or hurricane. Storm surge pushes water onto the surface of the land, adding to the flooding caused by any rainfall from the storm or hurricane and further increasing the amount of water that the stormwater system must handle. The higher the sea level, the farther inland the storm surge will reach. [Give some figure to make concrete the impact of a foot of SLR on the inland reach of storm surge, if we can find this.] Storm surge can also create the same dynamic as tidal flooding on stormwater systems, pushing water up into the system.
Some communities have already begun taking steps like installing devices that prevent seawater from backing up into the stormwater system to address the problem of tidal flooding. Others are making more costly investments, like pumps that are intended to push the water out from the pipes in the system to the outfall, to address all three types of flooding, notwithstanding sea-level rise. Downsides of pumps are their cost, the possibility that they will fail due to power outages in storms, exactly when they are most needed. Generators can help to address this, but these add cost, require maintenance, and can also fail as a result of storm impacts. As more communities face these challenges, communities around the country are exploring additional technologies and design solutions, but this remains an important challenge.
A: Hurricanes and storms can cause loss of life and injury, property damage or destruction, interfere with transportation and public services, expose residents to toxins in floodwaters, and cause many other forms of injury and inconvenience. The reality is that nothing can provide a guarantee that any person or property won’t experience these in the future. Unfortunately, none of us has a crystal ball that can predict the future.
However, some communities are experiencing a marked increase in the severity, duration, or frequency of severe storm events. Although it is hard to determine whether any particular storm is a chance occurrence, scientists have now developed ways to identify the extent to which the strength or intensity of storms or their impacts can be attributed to sea-level rise or climate change. This is a new and rapidly developing field of study. As we improve our understanding of these relationships, this attribution may prove a powerful tool for helping us to understand hurricanes and severe storm events and what they mean for the future.
For now, the documentation of ongoing sea-level rise and the interplay between sea-level rise and flooding make any pattern of flooding at the least a warning signal that warrants attention. This Guide is intended to help you to inform yourself so that you can decide whether or not there are grounds for concern, and what concrete steps you can take to protect yourself from whatever risks you identify.
If you are a homeowner or considering buying a home, chances are you view this not just as a place to live, but also as an investment. And if you are like most people, it is a significant investment and one you want to hold its value, if not increase in value.
In addition to the national and regional data you may be able to find and the visualization tools, there are also private companies that will assess an individual piece of property and provide you a projection of how many days per year the property is likely to be flooded. This is a relatively new segment of the consulting industry that has sprung up in response to the increasing awareness of the impacts of flooding. One example of this type of consulting service is Coastal Risk Consulting.[i] This company advertises that it can provide you with an initial risk designation for your property, a Coastal Risk Rapid Assessment report, and an estimate of the number of total flood days your property will experience in the short-term and long-term future. For a fee, firms like this one aim to help buyers, sellers, and investors make informed decisions about specific properties. If you decide you’d like to explore hiring a consultant, there may be firms in your area.
A low likelihood that your property will flood in the near future is good news. But even if using the risk-mapping tools you see that your property isn’t likely to be flooded at some point during your expected lifetime, you also have to consider how and when flooding in your community may affect the value of your property. Consider how changes over time in an area can affect real estate value. Imagine a coastal neighborhood that edges on a bluff or cliff high above the sea. The bluff is eroding gradually but steadily as the ocean pounds on the sand at the base of the cliff. Although the process will take time to reach the houses, at some point, the fact of the erosion and the risk of collapse begins to affect the value of the homes.
Think for a second about your daily commute – to work, to school, to run errands, to go to the doctor, to attend church or other gatherings that are important to you. Consider all the roads you drive on; neighborhoods and areas you pass through; bridges over inlets, streams, rivers, or other water bodies that you cross without even noticing them. Flooding of your home is not the only impact that can disrupt your life. Impacts to the areas you traverse daily may affect you in a variety of ways. Roads may be impassable, businesses and services you depend on may be closed or may relocate or go out of business if subjected to repeated flooding.
In addition, many communities, such as Miami and Fernandina Beach in Florida, experience multiple “sunny day floods” per year. Sunny day flooding is the temporary inundation of low lying areas during exceptionally high tide events, such as at full and new moons. From 2005 through 2014, states within the US collectively experienced 3,291 coastal flood days—76% of these floods can be attributed to climate change and sea-level rise. To view updated local flood counts, plus current water levels and local flood threshold elevations for most areas nationwide, visit riskfinder.org (opens in new tab).
Another factor to consider is all of the public infrastructure you rely on besides roads. Where is the power plant located that provides power for your area? Is it at risk of flooding? Will the local stormwater system that carries away heavy rains still function at higher sea levels or will the water back up into streets that weren’t otherwise predicted to flood? If streets are raised, will homeowners be able to connect into the public drainage infrastructure? If utility wires are buried underground or beneath streets, will they be damaged by increased flooding and salt water, causing occasional or frequent power or internet outages? Will there be impacts to your drinking water supply – whether from salt water intrusion into a wellfield or aquifer or contamination of a surface water supply? In addition to what may happen to the physical infrastructure on which you depend, you may want to think about something we might call social infrastructure. How you fare in a disaster may depend significantly on the human dimensions of your community– that is, the human relationships and the strength of civic organizations. Social science has long documented (opens in new tab) how positive human relationships increase our individual resilience in the face of various types of stress or loss. Recently, however, there has been attention to how the existence of strong social networks and institutions may affect communities during and after a disaster. Research (opens in new tab) suggests that having strong social infrastructure—that is, a community with strong social networks, and engaged and empowered citizens—is associated with a community faring better in the face of disaster.
Many local governments in coastal communities today are anticipating how sea-level rise will affect the people in their communities and trying to begin to plan for it. There are many resources available to local governments and case studies to show how different approaches have worked in different communities. We are still in the early stages of the impacts of sea level rise, and we will continue to learn from the experience of other communities as time passes.
Case studies of successful planning by communities to date highlight the critical importance of engaged and informed citizens who participate actively in the planning process. First, there are important choices to be made, and it is important that the choices made reflect the community members’ shared values and priorities. Second, most choices entail trade-offs, whether in the form of allocations of funding or prioritization of city staff time and expertise. These are decisions on which local officials will want input and guidance from the community and which will be better accepted if the community is involved in making them.
Another lesson that some communities have learned is that many people, and in particular vulnerable populations, will find it hard to participate in government-organized meetings. Many families have demanding schedules between the demands of work, school, and any civic or religious commitments they have already made. So another important contribution engaged citizens can make is to help ensure local government reaches out to existing community organizations, religious communities, and other networks to engage people where they already gather. In fact, there are several examples in Florida of local grassroots groups formed to address a social justice concern or purpose that have refocused to tale on the cause of building greater community resilience in vulnerable communities. This type of leadership can be effective catalysts for stronger policies that address these communities’ concerns. So helping to connect local government with your segment of the community can be an important step.
Realizing the important role your local government plays means that you will be better equipped to participate in community decisions and to support or advocate as your local government decides on policies that may affect your future.
Rainy-Day Funds: One proactive measure you may want to consider is opening a savings account specifically for dealing with sea-level rise and flooding–so that you will have money saved up for both preparation and mitigation purposes. Although we have discussed state and federal grants that are available to assist individuals with property damage associated with flooding, these grants may take a long time to obtain. Additionally, since we know that the effects of sea-level rise are progressively worsening in Florida, it is best to be as prepared as possible. Further, a savings account will provide you with more flexibility and allow you to consider broader options if your property experiences substantial flooding.
This concept has recently been considered on a federal level as well. In October, 2017, former U.S. Senator Bill Nelson introduced legislation aiming to provide some much needed tax relief to individuals and small businesses hit hardest by recent hurricanes, including Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Although it didn’t become law, keep an ear out for measures like this in the future that would allow individuals and businesses to create tax-free savings accounts to help cover expenses incurred during future disasters. But even if it does not, creating your own “rainy-day fund” has extensive long-term benefits as a Florida Coastal Citizen.
Your Legacy: You may feel overwhelmed when you think about the potential impacts of flooding and sea-level rise on you, your family, and your community. It’s easy to think what you do as one person won’t make a difference to others and that all you can manage is to protect your own interests. But the fact is, you not only can make a difference, you will make a difference—by what you do and what you don’t do. So the only question is whether you want to choose consciously what your legacy will be. Below are three ways that you can go beyond merely protecting your own interests to create a legacy as a good neighbor, a good citizen, and a champion for those in need.
Embracing the Golden Rule: An important concept to consider when you make significant decisions about how you will prepare your property for sea-level rise and related flooding is what some have called the “Golden Rule of Resilience.” What this version of the Golden Rule demands is that you not build or add to your property in such a way that is going to make your neighbor worse off. This ethical precept raises the importance of being considerate to your neighbors and your community, as they are all dealing with the same worrisome concerns and uncertainty as well. By being considerate, your actions will likely inspire your neighbors to be considerate and your community will do much better with their preparation efforts as a whole. We all know the famous cliché—it takes a village!
Becoming an Engaged Coastal Citizen: Following the Golden Rule also aligns with the reality that having strong community relationships is an important factor in recovering from a disaster like a flood or hurricane. Both during disasters and in their wake, those communities and individuals who have strong social networks do better and recover more quickly. So, strange though it may seem, working to build a strong community, being a good neighbor, and participating in local civic life may actually save your life and help your family to recover should disaster strike.
Becoming A Champion for Fairness: It’s clear that vulnerable populations – those who are poor, elderly, disabled, or otherwise marginalized—are generally affected most severely and disproportionately by disasters. There are increasing calls to ensure that plans to avoid disasters and reduce their impacts, as well as response and recovery plans, consider and protect the most vulnerable and not just those with resources and advantages. Yet it is often hardest for those who are vulnerable to participate in local government processes and planning. So, serving as a voice for those who may be overlooked is an important role for those who have the means and skills to do so. Often all it takes is showing up and asking the right questions!
With Floridians having the most property at risk and now, the most people at risk from rising seas,[i] many Floridians are asking themselves “what can I do to protect myself, my family, and my property from the effects of flooding and sea-level rise?” These are smart questions to be asking. The harsh reality is that a significant degree of sea-level rise is now inevitable, and flooding is already a serious problem for many Florida communities. Studies show that efforts to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change can reduce the extent and pace of future sea-level rise. However, experts warn that a certain amount of sea-level rise is already locked in by the greenhouse gases we’ve already emitted into the atmosphere, the effects of which we are expected to be feeling over the next [hundred ?] years. So, rising seas and more frequent and intense flooding are things we need to plan for.
And there are steps you can take to plan and prepare for sea-level rise. The tools and resources in this guide are intended to equip you with the information necessary to help you make decisions regarding your Florida community, your home, and your future plans as a Floridian.
Perhaps the most important thing you can do presently is to think about the future, as uncomfortable and difficult as that can be. You’ve already taken a big step by starting to educate yourself with this Guide. That step puts you on the path to making informed and knowledgeable decisions, including planning to keep yourself and your family safe. This same information will help you to determine whether your federal, state, and local government officials are making decisions that align with your interests and values and those of your community. If they’re not, they need to hear from you about it!
Planning to keep yourself and your loved ones safe in the event of a storm, flood or other disaster is a more specific and equally important task. To educate yourself on how to keep yourself and your loved ones safe during a storm or flood, visit these resources:
https://www.ready.gov/plan (opens in new tab)
https://www.floridadisaster.org/planprepare/ (opens in new tab)
https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/make-a-plan.html (opens in new tab).
This Guide is focused more on the long-term. It’s not just this year or this hurricane season we need to prepare for – it’s a lifetime. Therefore, this section starts with a guide to becoming an informed coastal citizen. It’s called Knowledge is Power. Additional sections focus on Protecting your Home and Belongings whether you are a Homeowner or a Renter.
THOMAS T. ANKERSEN
Professor Ankersen directs UF’s Conservation Clinic, the experiential learning arm of Levin’s Environmental and Land Use Law Program. Ankersen also directs the College’s Costa Rica Program. He practices domestic, international and comparative environmental law with an emphasis on Florida, Latin America and the Caribbean. Internationally he has worked and/or taught in 30 countries, though his focus remains in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the late 1990’s he helped to found the Mesoamerican Environmental Law Network, a consortium of non-governmental advocacy organizations. Internationally, his work has led to both domestic law reforms and international agreements in Africa and Central America as well as in the United Nations treaty system (World Heritage Convention Operational Guidelines). Ankersen has used his clinical experience to aid in the formation of four new environmental law clinics at law schools in Costa Rica and the Brazilian Amazon. In Florida, Ankersen works with state and local governments as well and non-profits to pursue innovative solutions to environmental and land use issues through law and policy. He serves as Florida Sea Grant’s statewide legal specialist.
Professor Ankersen’s international scholarship has centered on comparative civil and common law, in particular comparative property law. Domestically, Ankersen researches and publishes in the area of environmental restoration, climate adaptation, and marine and coastal law and policy. He serves on the board of the National Sea Grant Law and Policy Journal.
ALYSON CRAIG FLOURNOY
Professor Flournoy joined the Levin faculty in 1988. She served as director of the Environmental and Land Use Law Program from its inception until 2011 when she began serving as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, where she remained until 2015. She has taught courses in Environmental Law, Property and Administrative Law and has published book chapters and journal articles on environmental policy. Prior to her tenure at UF, Flournoy clerked for New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Wilentz and practiced with the firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., principally in the field of environmental law. Professor Flournoy received her J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School and her A.B. from Princeton University.
Her scholarship focuses on the design of legislation to protect natural resources, including decision-making processes under environmental and natural resource laws, and environmental ethics. She has addressed these themes in writing on endangered species and forest management, wetlands conservation and restoration, and regulation of toxic substances. Her most recent work focuses on law and policy responses to disasters and sea level rise, and the importance of identifying the values that are embedded in the nation’s environmental laws and policies. Professor Flournoy has written numerous articles on environmental and natural resources law topics, including several on wetlands regulation under the Clean Water Act. She is co-editor and a co-author of BEYOND ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: POLICY PROPOSALS FOR A BETTER ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURE, which develops her proposal for a National Environmental Legacy Act. Flournoy is a trustee and past president of Florida Defenders of the Environment, a past chair of the Environmental Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools and a member scholar and trustee of the Center for Progressive Reform.