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Sea walls aren’t enough to protect the world’s coastal communities from inundation as sea levels rise.
In fact, Georgia Tech President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough tells web magazine Line//Shape//Space, no single strategy will. It takes a combination of approaches, he said, work that civil engineers are and will be leading.
Clough is especially qualified to offer insight on the issue: He led the committee that oversaw reconstruction plans for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
“The sea-level rise of 2 to 2.5 feet will take 100 years to develop,” Clough told Line//Shape//Space. “Hurricane Katrina, 80 years from now, will be acting on a sea level much higher and more likely to overtop levees.”
Clough is featured in the piece along with the director of the Port of Long Beach and the chair of a climate change adaptation group at the American Society of Civil Engineers.