Staten Island seawall: Designing for climate change
Updated 14th July 2019
"By 2025, New York's Staten Island will be fortified by a towering seawall running 5.3 miles along the coast, an engineering feat designed to ward off a growing threat.
The climate crisis is predicted to create more powerful and extreme weather systems all over the world, and coastal engineers are racing to respond with structures to reduce their impact.
The first seawalls were built centuries ago, though there are now, arguably, greater assets to protect and more people living along vulnerable coastlines than ever before.
A recent report by the Center for Climate Integrity estimated it could cost the US more than $400 billion over the next 20 years to protect coastal communities."
"Staten Island's new wall
When Hurricane Sandy smashed into the US East Coast in 2012, Staten Island was overwhelmed by massive waves that swept away properties and killed 24 of the dozens of people who eventually died in the storm.
With a population of almost half a million, low-lying Staten Island was no match for the waves whipped up in New York Harbor, one of which reached a record 32.5 feet high."
"Mostly granite is being used but in some cases we are using vegetation -- a particular type of vegetation from the trees there," Pareeth said.
"The design of seawalls has evolved over time, from rock -- which is still used -- to interlocking concrete units, including the Tetrapods commonly seen in Japan. When rock isn't available, concrete can be more cost-efficient, allowing large numbers of correctly-sized parts to be produced.
"In recent years there's been a greater push towards natural solutions -- using dunes, mangroves and man-made reefs alongside man-made walls to help calm the sea.
"We're not only building a structure that is functional in an engineering sense but it's functional in an environmental sense," said Matt Eliot, a coastal engineer and direct of Seashore Engineering based in Perth, Australia. "We're using that to look for what habitats we can encourage to make it better for the plants and animals in the area."
In some cases, holes and crevices are being built into the walls to encourage nature to grow around them. Other designs seek to reduce the impact of waves before they hit."
More within the article
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/staten-island-seawall-climate-crisis-design/index.html