Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change

by Orrin H. Pilkey, Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, Keith C. Pilkey

Melting ice sheets and warming oceans are causing the seas to rise. By the end of this century, hundreds of millions of people living at low elevations along coasts will be forced to retreat to higher and safer ground. Because of sea-level rise, major storms will inundate areas farther inland and will lay waste to critical infrastructure, such as water-treatment and energy facilities, creating vast, irreversible pollution by decimating landfills and toxic-waste sites. This big-picture, policy-oriented book explains in gripping terms what rising oceans will do to coastal cities and the drastic actions we must take now to remove vulnerable populations.

The authors detail specific threats faced by Miami, New Orleans, New York, and Amsterdam. Aware of the overwhelming social, political, and economic challenges that would accompany effective action, they consider the burden to the taxpayer and the logistics of moving landmarks and infrastructure, including toxic-waste sites. They also show readers the alternative: thousands of environmental refugees, with no legitimate means to regain what they have lost. The authors conclude with effective approaches for addressing climate-change denialism and powerful arguments for reforming U.S. federal coastal management policies.

Genres: Environment, Science, Climate Change, Nonfiction, Nature, History, Sustainability

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Orrin Hendren Pilkey Jr. was an American marine geologist who was Professor Emeritus of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Nicholas School of the Environment, at Duke University, and founder and director emeritus of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines (PSDS) based at Western Carolina University.

Reviews

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is packed with hard science and backed up by NASA observations; despite this it is extremely readable. In my personal experience there are still a few people making their money from fossil fuels who don't want to admit that the ice is melting and the sea is rising. Or if it is, they won't admit that there is or will be any problem. Would that were the case. The rest of the sane, educated, world is going to need this book.

Author Orrin Pilkey tells us that the house where he grew up was flooded by Hurricane Camille in 1969 and was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Today he sees that house sites in that neighbourhood are still offered for sale. Why are we building in flood plains or below sea level in at-risk cities? Why do rich people get planning laws swayed so they can build sea walls around their homes, which are unsightly and don't address the real problem? Will the cost of temporarily saving Miami be met by a burdened populace as New York imports solutions from the Netherlands?

I like that for every problem highlighted (literally highlighted on the pages) there are also researched solutions offered. These range from increasing salt marshes to shifting heritage collections, nuclear power plants, populations and waste dumps to inland sites. I like that ocean study terms are explained and how ocean levels are measured is described.

I like the case studies, including the town of Norfolk, Virginia which has hired a Dutch engineer to help resolve the issue of Chesapeake Bay recently flooding the streets twice a month. As the glaciers have largely gone, and the polar ice caps are melting fast, other cities will have to take notice. Freshwater aquifers will be contaminated by salt, which has already caused the evacuation of islands, and trees will die. Storms will worsen, deltas flood and cliffs erode. We don't know how soon it will be before global populations are on the move from rising seawater the way they already are from lack of rain. But it will happen. I recommend this excellent and thoroughly researched book to city planners, engineers, students of ocean science, and anyone with a home in sight of the sea or concerned about world geopolitics.

I read a copy through Net Galley for an honest review. I also recommend on this topic:
Planning for Coastal Resilience: Best Practices for Calamitous Times by Timothy Beatley
Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader's Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis by John Berger
The Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Even Poorer by John C. Mutter.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

“For the past two centuries, two trends have been steady and clear around the United States. Sea level has been rising, and more people have been moving closer to the coast,” stated NASA scientists. The steadiness and ineluctability of these two trends have been observed and documented worldwide as well by scientists and international organizations.

We're fucked but won't admit it. America in particular, because they don't want to use the word 'retreat'. Goes into details about how Miami, New Orleans and to a lesser extent Boston and small Alaskan villages are fucked, and overseas looks at Jakarta, Bangladesh, Pacific Islands. There's a great bit in the Florida chapter devoted to just slagging Marco Rubia and republicans. On the other hand, New York and the Netherlands are planning ahead (I liked the thing about using underground parking and parks as a place to hold storm water (and just realized we have parks used for the purpose in my town), and the Dutch sandbar that erodes inland).

The penultimate chapter on climate change deniers was infuriating.

Highlighted:

Dutch adaptation: For example, the Dutch have built an underground parking garage in Rotterdam that doubles as a water storage area to hold water during flood events. In addition, more and more parks in the Netherlands are being designated as storage areas for floodwaters that will be released once the flood conditions have passed.

...

The Dutch hope to take advantage of massive offshore sand deposits to help maintain their shorelines in their current location for as long as possible despite sea-level rise. Indeed, sand replenishment as flood control is a major theme emerging from the Dutch plans. The Dutch are blessed with both massive supplies of sand and a massive supply of money. They are testing a new approach called the Sand Engine, which does not use the traditional methods of depositing sand directly on the beach or directly offshore. Instead, the Sand Engine entails building, using offshore sand, a half-mile seaward hook-shaped peninsula in front of the beach. The idea is that the body of sand protruding seaward will erode and provide a continuous supply of sand to the adjacent beaches. The back side of the hook will create a small lagoon sheltered from the waves to serve as a habitat for fish and a recreational spot for beach visitors. Regardless of whether this engineering innovation is effective, the Dutch will be increasing their replenishment of beach sand as a cornerstone of their flood-protection plans.


Architecture and rising sea levels: There are many creative ideas about how to accommodate the anticipated increased flooding associated with sea-level rise. The Dutch architect Koen Olthuis appears to be leading the way in the use of floating structures. Olthuis calls for letting “water in and even making friends with it.” His amphibious architecture allows buildings to detach from the ground during flood events. Olthuis’s company and the Dutch Docklands firm have built Greenstar, a floating hotel and conference center in the Maldives, and are constructing a similar floating hotel in Norway called the Krystall. H&P Architects, a Vietnamese firm, have designed a prototype of a low-cost floating house made from bamboo that is secured to pilings and sits atop recycled oil drums to allow the house to float during flood events. Similarly, Ann English’s Buoyant Foundation hopes to retrofit Louisiana homes in flood-prone areas atop Styrofoam blocks to turn them into amphibious houses that can rise with floodwaters.


Our options: Like it or not, we will retreat from most of the world’s nonurban shorelines in the not very distant future. Our retreat options can be characterized as either difficult or catastrophic. We can plan now and retreat in a strategic and calculated fashion, or we can worry about it later and retreat in tactical disarray in response to devastating storms. In other words, we can walk away methodically, or we can flee in panic. These are the choices we have.


Raising awareness: King tide is a colloquial term for the very highest of tides. In New South Wales, Australia, the Department of the Environment came up with the brilliant idea to use king tides to educate the public about sea-level rise. This led to the Witness King Tides community photography project, which has spread, as the King Tide Photo Initiative (KTPI), to a number of U.S. states, British Columbia, and even Tuvalu, an island nation in the Pacific. Each of these organizations announces to the public the dates of the next king tide and urges citizens to document the now-routine flooding with photos to display online. These photographs of king tides offer a glimpse into our future—a preview of where the increasing levels of the sea are headed and an engaging way to alert and educate the concerned, the skeptical, and the unaware.


Hope for three feet, but James Hansen expects more: The consensus among climatologists, glaciologists, and oceanographers is that our society should be prepared for a 3-foot rise by 2100. For Norfolk, Virginia, where sea-level rise is unusually rapid, the expected rise could be 5.5 feet. Norfolk has such a high rate of sea-level rise because it is simultaneously affected by four of the main causes of sea-level change: the increased volume of seawater from melting ice; the increased volume of seawater from warming oceans; the subsiding land; and the changes in ocean circulation causing the central Atlantic Ocean bulge to flatten and contribute water to the mid-Atlantic coast. We discuss these causes later.
...
Currently, a widely accepted sea-level rise scenario is a minimum of 1.5 feet, a maximum of 5 feet, and a likely rise of 3 feet by the year 2100. ... In the 1980s, James Hansen, former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was the first to bring global climate change and sea-level rise to the attention of the U.S. Congress. Then in 2015, Hansen and 16 colleagues dropped a bombshell prediction of a possible maximum 10-foot sea-level rise in this century. This number was based on the assumption that once the ice sheets begin to break up, melting will proceed at an accelerating, rather than a steady, pace.


Worst cases: The potential for sea-level rise from the world’s ice bodies goes something like this: If all of Greenland’s ice melted, the sea level would rise 20 feet. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melted completely, the seas would rise 16 feet. The much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise the seas by 164 feet, and all the world’s mountain glaciers would contribute between 1 and 2 feet.


Didn't realize scientists measured sea level rise in this amount of detail: n 2014, University of Arizona and NOAA scientists reported in an article in Nature Communications that the sudden surge of almost 4 inches in sea-level rise in 2009/2010 between New York and Canada was probably due to a slowdown in a major ocean current system known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), of which the Gulf Stream is a component.

...

The graphs of sea-level rise over time are what scientists call noisy because of the year-to-year and decades-long variations in some of the factors just cited. Because of the many peaks and valleys on the line marking the sea level, at least a decade of data is required in order to sort out any trends. One downward trend lasted for 18 months from 2010 into early 2011 when the global sea level dropped about 0.3 inch. According to a study published in Geophysical Research Letters in 2013, the probable cause of this temporary drop was the number of torrential rainfall events in over a 2-year period (2010/2011) in Australia, coupled with the dry soils of the Australian desert and its poorly developed drainage system. Much of the rain did not immediately reach the sea. Since then, however, the rate of sea-level rise has resumed its pre-2010/2011 pace.


On shorelines in northern latitudes, including Scandinavia, New England and eastern Canada, and on beaches from Puget Sound north, unconsolidated sands and gravels left behind by the glaciers provide much material for beach construction but are particularly vulnerable to erosion and failure by sliding.


Many of the subsidies are for second homes of wealthy homeowners. We subsidize their flood insurance, and when their houses are destroyed, we provide emergency relief funding to rebuild their homes. This welfare for the rich must stop. In an age of climate change with rising seas and the increased severity of storms, we can no longer afford to hide the true costs of building in hazardous coastal areas. We must recognize that we do not owe anything to anyone foolish enough to build in such obviously dangerous places. Rather, we should penalize such behavior. Our tax money could be better spent encouraging and facilitating a planned and managed retreat from the coast—relocating people to higher ground instead of repeatedly rebuilding in many areas that we never should have built in the first place.

[Greyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clear five stars for clarity of writing, clear call to action, and attention to scientific detail when making its point. The point? Retreat from low-lying coastal areas is inevitable and the longer coastal communities (and the state/national governments in which these communities reside) roll the dice the more expensive and potentially dangerous these communities become - both economically and in terms of potential lives lost.

At a slim 165 pages (plus 40 pages of endnotes) it provides an excellent overview along with a final 20 pages of call-outs for climate deniers and their corporate bankrollers. Absolutely sickening.

I have written and deleted a few sentences in an attempt to critique the writing - some sentences are written almost verbatim multiple times throughout, and the authors have a tendency toward lists of definitions/bullet points at times. However; these really don't outweigh the essential purpose of the text.

[Elite Group · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clinical look at a worrying future

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. It suffered from an immense category five hurricane with 174mph winds combined with a 28 foot storm surge. Safety measures put in place failed, either because of poor design or substandard materials. Two thousand deaths and $100b of damages later it was one of the worst storms ever to hit America.

So far…

In this comprehensive book, the authors outline the sort and long term future with regards to the effects of climate change and expanding and rising seas, particularly concentrating on the effect that it will have coastal communities, businesses and infrastructure. Being an American centric book they concentrate on Miami, New Orleans, California and New York. They do venture off to other places, reporting briefly on the UK and other islands round the world, but spend a fair amount of the book looking at what the Dutch have done and how they have dealt with a significant portion of the country being lower than sea level.

They consider the political aspects and the certain fact that the world will have to cope with millions of displaced environmental refugees. They make suggestions on how we will be able to mitigate this and consider the problems that the climate change denial is causing. The authors predict a frightening future for a sizable number of the population near the coast and argue powerfully for substantial and immediate changes to be made. Even though the subject makes for grim reading, they seem to know their facts and their suggestions are based on real evidence. Well worth reading even though it was quite American centric. Sadly, the book was littered with formatting errors, with random paragraphs and odd capitalisation. It was a review copy, and I hope they address it for final publication, because this is a book people need to read

Halfmanhalfbook

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

[Cwiegard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good exploration of the topic of sea level rise and human communities. Very eye opening! Outside of the science community, we are still arguing over the very existence of climate change. But in the real world, several feet of sea level rise is already locked in- making it almost inevitable that we will have to abandon portions of New Orleans, Hampton Roads, south Florida, and New York City, over the next century. why? Because as the sea rises, we will find that there is not enough money in the world to push back the sea everywhere.
This book is too short. I would have preferred another 100 pages so that the authors could fully detail their lesson. But it is excellent, in covering all the basics.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. It suffered from an immense category five hurricane with 174mph winds combined with a 28 foot storm surge. Safety measures put in place failed, either because of poor design or substandard materials. Two thousand deaths and $100b of damages later it was one of the worst storms ever to hit America.

So far...

To read the rest of this review go here

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is clearly written and informative if somewhat repetitious. It also argues clearly for the concept of human contribute to climate change, i.e., global warming.

Divided into eleven chapters in a brief 165 pages, the narrative eats at the reader like the tides, returning again and again to the one possible ecological and economical response to the rising seas, retreat. For someone living on a small island on which high tides are encroaching on one major road and storms are likely to cut us into three, the book is not encouraging.

Nature is the fundamental and indomitable antagonist, but it is supported by the work of developers, real estate agents, fossil fuel purveyors, and their minions in the state legislatures and Congress, like the moronic senator from Oklahoma, Inhofe (Rep.), and his snowball.

What is at stake is the expectation of large-scale movements of refugees from low-lying land and eroding bluffs. The authors see these as unavoidable as the land cannot withstand the effects of the oceans. In the US, we can look to Miami and the rest of southern Florida (low), New Orleans (delta),
and all of the McMansions built along the coastlines. Irma gave us a recent taste as did Harvey, which did a bit of damage to the petroleum works lying along the Gulf Coast (it isn't only private individuals who shall have to move).

The Yahoos in charge in the Trump Administration are either monumentally stupid or bought and paid for by those who still insist on profiting from their industries, i.e., the Koch boys, Rex Tillertson's old employer, etc, etc.

So, yes, the book is infuriating, especially after reading Ch. 10, "Deny, Debate, and Delay" (pp [139]-154), in which deniers' names are named, strategies for sowing doubt are detailed, all this on top of earlier information on the complicity of the US government in supporting shoreline rebuilding of houses that will never survive (Ch. 6).

Anyone who pays the taxes which allow government folly (or worse) in this matter should read this book, provide copies for political representatives, and vote for sanity. Perhaps, checking out DoD and CIA analyses as well as those once available from the EPA and NOAA might add some ammunition to sustain and even win this battle. The sea will not be defeated, but yahoo politicians can be.

[skid · Rating 5 out of 5]

While written in a somewhat mechanical style with a lot of dry humor, this book expertly and methodically addresses the necessity for coastal retreat, how climate change (and thereby coastal retreat) has and will effect a set of uniquely challenged communities such as Miami, New Orleans and others internationally, presents a set of policy solutions, and discusses the problems in implementing said solutions.

For example, while we have all heard the story of the stereotypical person who refuses to move after disaster strikes, I was unaware the extent that monied interests have high-jacked the NFIP. They have created a situation of “corporate socialism”, encouraging high-risk investment in dangerous shoreline developments where they experience all of the gains, and the losses due to predictable storms and high-tides are subsidized by the taxpayer.

The forces of climate denial continue to downplay and confuse the public as to the situation, but soon it will no longer become deniable that we will need to move many communities inland. It is better to develop and execute a gradual strategy today, than to wait until catastrophe strikes, leaving communities to compete with one another for scarce resources.

This is an enlightening read for anyone interested in coastal retreat, though it is certainly not a “page-turner” in the traditional sense.

[Valaya Gaudet · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors make a good case for why we should be extremely concerned about rising sea levels and the fact that not enough is being done about them. The abundant amount of data that they provide was an eye-opener and convinced me that this should be a major concern for the whole world.
I only wish the book contained more maps showing the regions that are affected the most, such as the coast of Florida. True, it's easy to Google them but that kind of defeats the purpose of reading a book if you have to stop and go to clarify what the authors are talking about. I gave the book 4 stars but it should me more like 3 1/2.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Important point: If I lived in a number of coastal cities (especially Miami, FL), I would sell and move further inland. Had no idea that water could come into Miami through underground limestone.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great overview of the threat that is sea level rise. At times, a bit disorganized and repetitive, but overall a compelling take on an important issue.

[Jorgon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, it is quite frightening.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and a good overview of why retreat will be necessary, but very dry and already feels a tad dated.

[Anne Ipsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be required reading of every mayor and town planner for any US city or town within 50 miles of the sea. Even if the homes and businesses under their jurisdiction are not in the direct path of the next storm surge, officials should be prepared to receive those wise enough to retreat beforehand or as first responders to those desperately seeking refuge at the last minute. As an example, in Chapter 3, the stark news is that “the survival of both Miami and New Orleans beyond the twenty-first century is in serious doubt.” However, whereas the latter is making attempts to prepare, at least for the next storm if not the longer-range future, Florida officials still have their head in the sand, sand that is rapidly being swept away with every high tide. Of course, these are not the only cities and towns with a dismal future, just the most obviously in trouble.
Chapter 6 describes the unintended side effects of the 1968 National Flood Insurance Program, designed to help flood victims of otherwise uninsurable homes. Unfortunately, this and other governmental programs have “encouraged dangerous and environmentally damaging shoreline development…. Frequently, storm recovery is essentially a vast urban renewal project,” at tax payers expense.
We could learn lessons from the past, especially the history of the Holderness Coast of Yorkshire, England [Chapter 11, “Ghosts of the Past, Promise of the Future”]. During the last two thousand years, 28 towns and villages have been inundated by eroding shoreline. The future destruction of an additional 20 towns will happen much more rapidly, during the next 50-100 years. Let the Holderness experience be our guide to the inevitable.
Orrin Pilkey et al have produced an important book by pulling together a vast array of facts from around the globe. There is much to learn, but I could have wished for less repetition, more focus, and better organization. How this could be achieved with this vast subject, I am not smart enough to discern.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

For not only those of us living near the sea, but for everyone faced with paying for the astronomical storm damage through our insurance rates and taxes, RETREAT FROM A RISING SEA is a must read.

Zeroing in on those areas most vulnerable to sea rise and focusing on New Orleans, Miami, New York City and the Netherland’s Amsterdam as examples, Professor Orrin H. Pilkey, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Earth and Ocean Sciences, at Duke University; Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, geologist at Washington's Department of Ecology, and Keith C. Pilkey, an attorney with a longstanding interest in geoengineering and corporate influence on science policy argue that the most sensible action in the face of cities and populations at risk is to retreat from these areas, and in some cases trying preserve the environmental migrants former neighborhoods.

They uses these cities as examples but also cite those areas, for example atoll islands and populations living on river deltas, such as Bangladesh, are especially vulnerable.

Using data collected from peer reviewed material, these authors make the unassailable case for action now, and point to those areas such as The Netherlands and New York City that have taken protective measures, and those areas such as Bangladesh and Miami that through lack of courageous leadership have remained blind to what is already for them, a crises.

RETREAT FROM A RISNG SEA might have been the stuff of science fiction or fantasy a few decades ago, but it is no longer; the rising ocean is real; this book, that reads like a thriller, is a must read for all of us.

[Polly Krize · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Superbly written and researched, this presents a full view of climate change and its effects on our world. Zeroing in on some threatened cities such as Miami, New Orleans and Amsterdam, the authors make a good case for re-location of a huge percentage of world population in the coming century. Also shows the down-side of not re-locating, such as huge refugee populations and unmanageable insurance. Each problem is neatly solved with solid scientific proof. Readable and very intriguing, a must-read for anyone!

[Scottie to Hottie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting topic for me, but this book just didn’t do it for me.