Should we move our population centres inland ?

[gobbledonk]

OK, I know there is a Katrina thread, but I'd like to address a bigger issue. The Asian Tsunami, Katrina and the recent typhoon in Japan all highlight the vulnerability of so many of our heavily-populated coastal cities.

 

Granted, few cities are as poorly located as New Orleans, but surely everything within 30km of the coast is a potential target as climate change takes hold, dishing up more severe weather. Earthquakes and tornadoes remain potential threats, no question, but surely we are digging ourselves a deeper pit if we continually rebuild coastal communities each time nature takes a swipe at them ? I'm not proposing that we relocate the citizens of NYC to Utah, or Phuket locals to Chiang Mai, but we need to question the whole 'we can rebuild it' shite that GWB recently trotted out.

 

Historically, many of our cities have sprung up around ports, and I'm not proposing the abolition of the industrial infrastructure on the coast. Personally, I'd prefer to commute from high ground than live at sea level - your mileage may differ. I also realise that many tourists prefer the beach to the mountains - let them reside in the seaside hotels and get everyone else out in the 'suburbs'.

 

In many cases, population pressures would make it untenable to even consider such an approach, but leaving millions in harms way makes no sense. The cost would be astronomical, but I see it as inevitable that the worst-located cities will eventually become little more than monuments to our initial poor planning.

 

The alernative may be to invest in massive sea walls, as the citizens of Galveston (and many Japanese cities) have done, but you have to wonder what that will do for tourism, and I still see major flooding as an ongoing risk in low-lying towns.

 

I'm sure my *simplistic* approach has a lot of holes in it, so I'm happy to hear other opinions. Those of you who live on fault lines (SE Asia has several that make San Andreas look like a crack in the sidewalk) will probably poo-poo me, but I suspect that the laughter may die down when you receive your next insurance bill.

[Guest lazyphil]

Cornelius Vermuyden a Dutchman (the dutch are experts in these matters!) created dykes and drains that criss cross North cambs and parts of Norfolk, we stole the wetlands in the 1600's and one day nature will reclaim, its a question of time thats all, not just coastel areas will be affected, these dykes and fen drains go deep inside the countryside, I read the earths water has to rise only a few inches before its buggered ::. Locals used to around on punts and stilts, still pretty weird bunch up there!

 

http://www.rootsweb.com/~engcam/cvermydn.htm

[OCgringo]

part of it is how high you are above the waterline ,

 

New Orleans was screwed from the beginning , as is Holland if something like this hit , being below sea level,

 

Coastal areas that are flat could be hurt bad, where I live there are many hills between my house and the ocean, so 2 miles inland is safe where I live

 

I guess the better question is do you rebuild in a bad area after its destroyed ?

 

Looks like the plan to rebuild in New Orleans just like they keep rebuilding the Florida coastline every few years,

 

OC

[Flashermac]

Nothing new. I remember when an extremely low tide exposed dolmens and cromlechs off the shore of Normandy (I think it was). And there are legends of land far beyond the present day English coastline to the southwest.

 

http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciNotes/0101/egypt.html

 

http://www.hermetics.org/cambay.html

[Nervous_Dog]

Brisbane in Queensland was set up to be inland, not on the coast, to avoid water problems (mostly mosquito)

 

Trouble is economies do much better when coastal or near waterways or excellant transport systems.

 

Coastal cities always have in the past grown faster.

 

That said, with modern roads etc, maybe we can move inland?

 

DOG

[Guest lazyphil]

Flash, most of the southwest has pretty defined coastline, lots of cliffs, but it could be possible in places I suppose, 'urban myth' most likely though....

[chuckwoww]

lazyphil said:

Flash, most of the southwest has pretty defined coastline, lots of cliffs, but it could be possible in places I suppose, 'urban myth' most likely though....

 

There was a land bridge connecting Europe and Britain at some time. Perhaps around the same time as the Bering Straits connected Asia and N. America.

 

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Land-bridge

 

Flasher may be thinking of the pre-Celtic dolmens etc. in Brittany which seem to have been constructed around the same time as Stonehenge and Avebury. i.e. 3000 B.C.

[rickfarang]

"That said, with modern roads etc, maybe we can move inland?"

 

Not likely to happen in a free society. Any movement out of exiting city centers would be very slow. Who would want to site their buisiness where the customers aren't? The treat of being flooded out every couple hundred years would not affect decisions to open the vast majority businesses.

 

I would hope that some business, like server farms, would take such things into consideration.

[Guest lazyphil]

I remember as a child going to Lyme Regis, Devon for a 2 week family holiday stopping at Avebury Circle (much less spoiled by new agers and hippys like Stone Hendge, at least it was then) at around 4am for pickle sandwiches my mum made, it was quite a spectacle at sunrise....completely off topic arty, sorry

[chuckwoww]

lazyphil said:

I remember as a child going to Lyme Regis, Devon for a 2 week family holiday stopping at Avebury Circle (much less spoiled by new agers and hippys like Stone Hendge, at least it was then) at around 4am for pickle sandwiches my mum made, it was quite a spectacle at sunrise....completely off topic arty, sorry

 

I think Flasher was just trying to put the recent natural disaster in perspective. Human history is short. Cities come and go. Oceans rise and fall. Le plus ca change. Something like that.