A roadmap for creating resilient waterfronts.
Adaptation Design
The warning signs are increasingly hard to ignore. Sea level rise and storm surge are disrupting coastal communities and causing economic losses on an annual basis.
How do we become more resilient?
Start by identifying which infrastructure is most vulnerable. An understanding of the vulnerability landscape can help mitigate the most damaging impacts. In the face of uncertainty and change, climate hazards that may affect a community must be assessed not only for today’s climate, but also for future scenarios.
My background is in ports and maritime. I’ve come to understand the complexity of improving the resilience of cargo ports while keeping them operational. Simply put, elevating waterside infrastructure to accommodate 100-year storm events and up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) of sea level rise makes current ship berthing and ship-to-shore cargo handling impossible and would create significant challenges for inland intermodal connections as well as stormwater management.
"I have been fortunate that my 30-year career has coincided with a resurgence of urban waterfront development. These developments not only enhance the beauty and accessibility of the water's edge but also rehabilitate or replace obsolete and aging marine infrastructure, making waterfronts more resilient and adaptable to storm surge and sea-level rise."
— Patrick King
What’s the answer?
Adaptive design incorporates elements that can withstand and recover from occasional flooding and add extra capacity in new wharves and piers so barrier systems and heightened deck elevations can be added without requiring additional substructure modifications or replacement.
We’re doing this at the Port of Alaska, which has an incredibly challenging environment that includes 38 foot (1.6 meter) tides, 5 knot currents, ice loading and high seismicity. We’ve also spent the past two years helping the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plan a 30 year, phased replacement of more than 12 miles (19 kilometers) of wharf structures with modernized, highly resilient and adaptative facilities.
In many places, former port facilities are undergoing transformation and redevelopment into waterfront and urban places, such as Toronto, Canada, and New York City, in what’s now termed “placemaking.” In the late 90s and early 2000s I was the project manager supporting the Hudson River Park Trust redeveloping more than 6.5 miles (10 kilometers) of New York City’s former commercial waterfront along the West Side.
Climate adaptation makes financial sense and is almost always more cost-effective than recovery. A climate-resilient community can provide social, economic and environmental benefits today and into the future.
We reimagined, strengthened and replaced the park’s seawalls, wharves and piers and worked with a team of engineers, scientists and architects to link these developments into a cohesive, accessible and protective urban waterfront landscape. Although it didn’t have the ”placemaking” moniker then, we now use these approaches for our resiliency work around the world, including cities such as London, Miami, Galveston and San Francisco.
Where climate change brings significant risks, there may also be key opportunities. As infrastructure upgrades occur, each project can assess climate change impacts and ensure adaptability in a structure’s design life. In California, the Port of San Francisco has embarked on a robust resiliency program to protect the city’s waterfront from sea level rise and seismic hazards. We’re helping build in adaptive capacity into the waterfront infrastructure upgrades to allow for changes over time. ■