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Waters in San Francisco Bay will likely be 40 centimeters higher in 40 years thanks to climate change. That may sound like a drop in the bucket for the famously hilly city, but the upper estimate for the next century—tides up 1.4 meters—could threaten buildings and city infrastructure, especially in the case of warming-fueled storm surges.

“We are going to have to deal with the issue of protecting the airports, Silicon Valley and downtown San Francisco much sooner than we thought,” the executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission told The Oakland Tribune.

To help get the ball rolling on local solutions to the global problem, the commission partnered with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to create the Rising Tide contest, which brought in 131 bright ideas from around the world for how to hold off the coming high tides (short of stopping glacial melt).

After being unable to choose just one stellar proposal, the jury decided to divide the prize money ($25,000) among six smart winners. The winning projects include a large fabric barrier to hold back high tides, an inverted “folding” levee that separates bay from sea and a reinstallation of marshlands in developed areas.

That the bay waters have risen about 20 centimeters in the past century has some local planners concerned already.

“We are going to have to be thinking about this and preparing for it,” the commission director, Will Travis, told the Tribune. “We don’t want to be in the Hurricane Katrina situation, where you deal with fixing the levees after the city has flooded.” 

Image of the bay from space courtesy of NASA via Wikimedia Commons

4 Comments

1. 1. acuitas 09:52 PM 7/22/09

   The most logical course of action that will save the most money, might even be good for the economy, would be to begin moving the city back to the lines where we think the water will be in 20 years. You cannot hold back the sea. It will claim the land it seeks in good time. This would not be surrender, it would be wisdom.

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2. 2. dubephnx 02:36 PM 7/23/09

   Flood-proofing the exteriors of the buildings might help!!
   
   Of course, to add this beneficial practice, you are going to have to earthquake-proof and stabilize the building exterior frames a lot better than is practiced today.
   
   When you construct/assemble a continuous load path, single tributary building/structure frame, you limit yourself and the building/structure frame's performance abilities.
   
   An earthquake applies both static and dynamic forces on building and structure frames, which fight back with just static force resistance performabilities.
   
   Add a continuous, dynamic forces addressing structural element to the entire building/structure frame, and the building/structure can address and fight all of the static and dynamic forces of the earthquake!!
   
   When the dynamic forces are addressed along with the static forces, the building or structure body-frame has full structural performance capabilities!!
   
   With full structural performance capabilities, the Designer can easily address and counter the earthquake's static and dynamic forces!
   
   The Designer can designate the rigid frame members to resist static forces, and the flexible frame members to absorb and dissipate the dynamic forces!
   
   The current popular dynamic forces solutionary measures include adding a pendulum device in highrise buildings, rolling balls under taller buildings, and alternative building frame materials. All other building/structure frame solutionary measures address only the static forces.
   
   The newest approach to adding a dynamic forces addressing structural element for buildings and structures is continuous steel strapping reinforcing. This method places the flexible, strong strapping cords along the building/structure frames, laterally along the linear frame joints/intersections, and vertically along the interior sides of the walls/sides.
   
   The benefits of this new reinforcing method range from the obvious to the complex. Obvious benefits include ease of installation and inspection, the development of dual tributary and load path combined frame systems, and material selection. Complex benefits include how the installed continuous strapping net adds impact and moment resistance, reduced impact and durational force reductions, and post-tensioning resistances to the rigid material frame members and assemblages.
   
   You can find reference material on this new reinforcing technology at the Tor-Eggs-Tor Design Solutions website; http://www.dubephnx@tor-eggs-torclosed-nets.org
   
   Continuous Steel Structural Strap-Nets and Extensions!!!
   
   

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3. 3. Quinn the Eskimo 01:53 AM 7/24/09

   So, tell us, just how much Federal Tax Money do you want "U.S." to donate to your little preservationist society?
   
   I mean, well, it ain't like California is broke now, is it?

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4. 4. dubephnx in reply to Quinn the Eskimo 04:25 PM 7/24/09

   Preventionists, not preservationists, Quinn.
   
   Prevention of damages and destruction from earthquakes doesn't cost "U.S." anything!!
   
   Structural Strap-Nets Continuous Reinforcing Technologies is a cost reducing, profit-driven alternative building and structure reinforcing method that creates jobs, lowers disaster damages costs, rebuilding costs, and medical injuries and fatality costs!!
   
   Each State in the U.S. is operating in debt, as well as the Country! Just because the California Budget was passed, doesn't mean California is rich or in a surplus budgetary position.
   
   The only State in the Union that is operating in a surplus budget is Alaska, which has been doing so since the oil pipeline has been in operation.
   
   Structural Strap-Nets Technologies implemented on the State, County, and Local levels offers the same surplus Governmental Budget operating as the oil pipieline in Alaska, because of the money saved from floods, fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, avalanches, mudslides, sinkholes. potholes, and so on. When the insurance claims adjustment of a building, for example changes from a half-million dollars to around 50,000 dollars, that's a savings of 200,000 dollars, per building, per event. Hurricane Katrina wiped out and totalled 287,000 foundationed buildings, over 50,000 foundationed structures, and over 1.4 million non-foundationed structures, cars, etc. It takes around fifty-sixty years to rebuild that much damage, and for the area to start going forwad again!!
   
   Can you imagine that area getting hit by another hurricane? Oh, yeah, there have been four major ddamaging hurricanes since Katrina in this same vulnerable area, make it sixty-five to seventy-five years before total recovery and going forward, as long as another hurricane doesn't slam the region within this time period. What are the odds?
   
   Galveston has been wiped off the map twice in a hundred years, San Fran twice in 83 years, and L.A. gets a Hurricane Ike sized destructive earthquake every 30-40 years or so. Want to buy some real estate on Galveston Bay?
   
   Structural Strap-Netting Reinforcing is a simple trensition for the Construction Industry, merely a Change Order on Construction Projects.
   
   So, there are no to very little upfront costs to implement these new systems, only profits to realize!!
   
   A major portion of Healthcare deals with injuries, and improved structure frames reduces injuries, both on the projects and in earthquakes, etc; opening up more Healthcare money for disease cures, prosthetics development, etc.

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