#nuisance flooding

[how-screwed-are-we]

Miami home values show how 'climate gentrification' is changing coastal real estate

A new study finds home values are both rising and falling in certain areas due to climate change and the rising risk of more extreme weather. The study looks at Miami and dramatic changes taking place in Little Haiti.

the higher elevation properties are essentially worth more now, and increasingly will be worth more in the future home values on Miami's coast are already worth 10 percent less now than they would be if climate change didn't exist. "nuisance" flooding, when king tides come in on sunny days, is already common in some neighborhoods. The city of Miami is already investing nearly $200 million into resilience, installing pump stations and upgrading its infrastructure. Miami Beach is on track to spend twice that, raising sidewalks and seawalls. The money is coming from new bonds – voters raising their own property taxes to protect their property.

[jenn2d2]

In the new report, NOAA scientists have defined a level above normal high tide that constitutes nuisance flooding for each of the tide gauges it maintains along the East, West, and Gulf Coasts. (These numbers were strictly based on tide levels; things like the amount of infrastructure present played no role in them.) It then examined the frequencies of nuisance floods at these locations, going back as far as the 1920s in some cases. At the earliest points, nuisance floods are extremely rare, happening every few years, if at all. But toward the end of the studied period, the floods had become regular events, happening several times a year on average. The rates of increase are staggering. In the last 50 years, Annapolis and Baltimore, Maryland, have seen rates of nuisance floods increase by 925 percent. New Jersey and Pennsylvania had rate increases in the 600s, while the nation's capital and San Francisco each saw the frequency rise by about 370 percent. Similar trends were found when the length of time the flooding persisted was tracked. The different rates are caused by other local conditions, such as settling due to the compaction of sediment. And the rises were generally more pronounced on the East Coast than they were elsewhere. But the report shows that regardless of the location, these nuisance floods will become increasingly significant, and sea level rise has a non-linear effect on their frequency. (via Sea level rise causing huge increases in “nuisance flooding” | Ars Technica)

[agavebuzz]

This nuisance flooding, caused by rising sea levels, has increased on all three U.S. coasts, between 300 and 925 percent since the 1960s.