New York City is now taking a cue from the Dutch and choosing to let the water in. Hurricane Sandy was a powerful reminder of how vulnerable New York City is to the rising sea levels. Immediately after getting swallowed up and soaked by the super storm there were calls to build massive revetments and flood gates to control the angry waters. But the reality of costs and the amount of time it would take to fortify the city made the immense projects impractical and maybe even coming to fruition too late - for the next big disaster.
Henk Ovink, a Dutch water-management expert, has become the senior adviser on the Presidential Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force which is under the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He stated in a New York Times article, “We didn’t want to just build barriers; we wanted to build an ecosystem. For that to happen, we have to live with the water, to understand it, while still understanding our vulnerabilities.”
In Holland, they’ve created more channels and flood plains and identified where they can guide the waters with the least amount of damage. Not entirely a new idea - before levees became the answer - towns along the Mississippi River and other vulnerable places maintained buffers of public park space at the water’s edge. Spaces that could flood and then simply be re-groomed. Developers found the real estate too valuable to let be. The human desire to be near water coupled with flood insurance that subsidizes stupidity brought homes and businesses to the brink of land’s end.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/two-years-after-sandys-surge-new-york-city-shifts-toward-a-softer-relationship-with-the-sea/?_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=fb-share&_r=0