Can Seawalls Save Us? – the New Yorker

Sea wall drains, Prachuap Bay, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand (by Troup Dresser CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

Pacifica, California, just south of San Francisco, is the kind of beachfront community that longtime residents compare to Heaven…Pacifica embodies one of the central disagreements about rising seas. Fight or flight? Stay or go? Flight can seem unimaginable. But, if we try to fight the ocean with rock and concrete, it will cost us—and it may not work…

Erosion Stripping Seven Mile Beach – cayman compass

Seven Mile Beach, Cayman Islands (by Brook Ward CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

The Compass recently observed the length of the beach using a drone camera to get the most up-to-date images of the impacts of the storm and ongoing erosion. It showed that some areas along the southern stretch have suffered a total loss of beach, and in at least one section, a near-5-feet-high ledge of sand has been created by the bombardment of the waves…

At risk from rising seas, Norfolk, Virginia, plans massive, controversial floodwall – NPR

Ground level rendering of proposed pump station and expanded flood wall along the Elizabeth River (courtesy of US Army Corps of Engineers | City of Norfolk, via ResilientNorfolk.com)

The city (of Norfolk) is now moving forward with a massive floodwall project to protect itself, in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The project will include tide gates, levees, pump stations and nature-based features like oyster reefs and vegetation along the shoreline. It’s one of the biggest infrastructure efforts in city history – and an example of projects the Corps has proposed up and down the U.S. coastline, from New York to Texas….