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How Florida’s Coastal Communities Battle Rising Tides

BY THOMAS EHLERS

Rising sea levels are no stranger to Broward County. Jennifer Jurado knows that from experience.

Jurado began working with the county 20 years ago, fresh out of the University of Miami’s marine biology doctoral program. She’s held a variety of roles through the years in the water resources, natural resources and resiliency areas, now working as the chief resilience officer and deputy director of the Environmental Protection and Growth Management Department.

“I started with the county in 2003, and one of my responsibilities was staffing our water advisory board,” she said.

“Through the work with the water advisory board and the water resources division, we were working on issues of sea level rise in the early 2000s. It really focused on how sea level rise was affecting water supplies… We appreciated that given the hydrology of the area, we were bound to see some significant impacts."

A Rising Problem

The phenomenon of sea level rise often gets press time during climate change discussions or when storm surge from hurricanes is worse than past cyclones. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts in its 2022 study that the US East Coast could see 10-14 inches of sea level rise in the next three decades, while the Gulf coast could see 14 to 18.

A few hundred miles away from Broward County, officials on the other side of the state are facing similar problems.

“The Tampa Bay region faces a range of problems from flooding, which can be exacerbated by factors such as heavy rainfall, sea level rise, and storm surge,” said Sarah Vitale, a senior planner and principal urban designer with Resilient Ready Tampa Bay. “Inland basins, estuaries, bay fronts and coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to flooding due to sea level rise because they are low-lying and often surrounded by dense populations.”

AIA, Hillsboro Beach

The topography of Florida doesn’t help itself either. Much of the state sits on porous limestone, which allows saltwater to either seep through holes or under barriers into the groundwater and raise water levels. When waters come, outdated drainage systems or poorly-functioning devices can’t handle the stress.

The 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report, a publication by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administrations (NASA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other government agencies along with Rutgers University and Florida International University, painted a rather bleak picture for the future. One key takeaway from the report:

By 2050, the expected relative sea level (RSL) will cause tide and storm surge heights to increase and will lead to a shift in U.S. coastal flood regimes, with major and moderate high tide flood events occurring as frequently as moderate and minor high tide flood events occur today. Without additional risk-reduction measures, U.S. coastal infrastructure, communities, and ecosystems will face significant consequences.

Florida Responds

Several Florida communities are taking steps to combat this rise in sea level. SeaLevelRise.org, a collection of local experts from across the United States including Jurado, exists to simplify the risks, causes, and solutions to sea level rise. The organization noted that more than $4 billion in projects are currently underway across the state.

Miami Beach put $400 million towards seawalls, pumps and raising roads. Fort Lauderdale more than doubled that number, creating a $1 billion plan to combat increased stormwater flooding. Broward County invested $250 million towards a sewage system flood plan, but that’s only part of the efforts. Jurado and other officials faced outdated guidelines but worked to create new ones.

Harrison Street, Hollywood

“A lot of the design standards prior to our work on climate like flood elevations from FEMA were 20-plus years old,” she said. “Our groundwater elevation map was based upon the data from the 1970s and ‘80s. Individuals historically could use historic conditions as the basis for planning for infrastructure, but the changes that were happening were happening so quickly that we were beginning to see the weakness of the sluggish operations.

“It was really critical that we began to update our hydrologic models to formally integrate sea level rise and these other changes – groundwater table rise and rainfall intensification – into our understanding of the evolving and future conditions.”

The county was able modify its model to get a better understanding of future conditions. That modified model is helping the area to combat future flooding problems.

“We modeled the 2.5-foot rise and its impact on the groundwater table and utilized that updated model to establish a future conditions groundwater table map that we use today.” Jurado said. “Today any major redevelopment or new development is required to use this future conditions groundwater table as the basis for the design of drainage and surface water management infrastructure. We want to make sure that as development takes place that the systems supporting development today will support the project over the course of its life span.”

Banding Together to Find Solutions

Resilient Ready Tampa Bay hosted a charrette, or a project design workshop, where the organization was able to take a look at problems and find solutions. Along with a group of planners, urban designers, landscape architects, engineers and hydrologists, Resilient Ready Tampa Bay came up with three sites in its six-county area to study and hosted three-day sessions to come up with a plan.

“More broadly, an outcome of the Resilient Ready Tampa Bay exercise was that it provided a framework for flood-prone communities to communicate about and respond to flood impacts: defend what is dry today or begin to adapt to a wetter future,” Vitale said. “Both approaches are likely to be pursued in some combination in most places depending on a range of variables, from cost to cultural value.”

Defense strategies include projects with hard infrastructure, such as pumps, gates, and walls, while adaptation strategies tend to be passive and greener, including living systems, natural wave energy reduction, elevation and relocation.

For the North Tampa Closed Basin, resiliency opportunities were found in transforming detention ponds into an interconnected stormwater park system. By allowing water to store where it falls, the area can rely on natural landscape to help mitigate floods before they form and create a process of transporting water to the aquifer.

The group also explored Pass-a-Grille and St. Pete Beach. Located on a barrier island, these towns face water issues from the Gulf of Mexico, the bay between mainland Florida and the island, rain and groundwater. Resiliency opportunities were found here in bolstering natural buffers, raising streets, seawalls and sand dunes and introducing living shorelines.

For Jurado, the work doesn’t end. She and her team are working on a risk assessment and infrastructure improvement plan to be rolled out next year that will provide basin-specific water management improvements and redevelopment strategies among other parts. She hopes that the project can be implemented across the 31 cities in her county in hopes of building a better future.

“For us, I think it’s really about being able to move forward with a very strong, solid platform that we can all commit to, have this really ingrained and in place in the next several years, and work very diligently over the next 10 or more years,” she said. “I think the next 10 years will be very critical in terms of organizing the infrastructure improvements.”

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