The city built the roads and open public spaces on terraces of sand more than 25 feet above normal high tide. Instead, planners created a special development zone, razed the old buildings and specified flood-related rules for new ones. Ringing their six miles of shoreline with dikes would have been prohibitively expensive and would have ruined the view. But, says Gödtel - who leads tours of the project - storm tides flooded the islands. He left the restaurant on an elevated roadway, keeping his feet dry.Ībout two decades ago, city officials realized that the islands, then a warehouse and industrial district near the city center, could be better used. Sitting in a café, Gödtel felt as safe as if he were peering into an aquarium, even though silty water swirled halfway up the restaurant's extra-thick windows, inches from his aquiline nose. Thorsten Gödtel, an urban planner, watched as the waters rose in HafenCity. But one neighborhood under construction on two river islands, HafenCity, stayed dry thanks to an innovative flood protection program.
Storm tale 2 torrent#
The port closed and a torrent washed through low-lying quarters. On November 9, 2007, a North Sea gale pitched a tide almost 18 feet above normal on the German coast, sending a surge of water that rushed all the way to Hamburg, 56 miles inland. Hamburg: New Flood-Protection Innovations And one of the most important discussions taking place at United Nations climate talks in Paris next month will be exactly how much aid industrialized nations will provide poorer countries in their battle to hold back the sea. officials hired Ovink to help plan future flood control measures.Įxperts note that while the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, and other industrialized nations have the means to confront, if not overcome, rising sea levels and higher storm surges, countries in the developing world - from Cairo to Bangladesh - generally do not. After Superstorm Sandy devastated the coastline of New York and New Jersey in 2012, for example, U.S. Many coastal protection officials around the world have been soliciting advice and expertise from experts in the Netherlands. But these approaches, too, are costly and could exact their own environmental toll. They're experimenting with the science of "building with nature," the practice of domesticating natural forces like wind and water, as well as using natural material such as sand and vegetation, to hold back the sea. Today, German and Dutch coastal planners and engineers are trying out new ideas that can fortify coastlines at lower financial and environmental cost. But these upgrades can be enormously expensive and take a high environmental toll on shoreline ecosystems. These two countries are beefing up time-tested flood barriers such as dikes and sluice gates, as shown in these striking aerial photographs by Alex MacLean. Germany and the Netherlands are leaders in flood control strategies and expertise, but other nations looking to them for help will find no easy solutions. "Societies all over," says Ovink, "have to rethink." But, according to Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs for the Netherlands, "fighting water is a war you never win," and that is especially true today considering that global sea levels are projected to rise at least three feet this century.
Storm tale 2 how to#
Out of their ruins, the vulnerable cities have learned how to cope with the ever-present risk of flooding. Floods have devastated property and, at times, drowned people by the hundreds. Residents of these two great port cities have battled water for centuries. But neighborhoods at the base of the plateau and on a few islands are at or below sea level.
Settlers and conquerors built Hamburg on low bluffs above the north bank. Cargo ships stacked high with red, orange, and blue containers glide up the Elbe, close by downtown. Hamburg, Europe's second-largest port, sits in an inland delta of the Elbe River. A band of dikes snakes along the city's shoreline, a reminder of storm surges that could flood Rotterdam at any time. Ninety percent of the city sits below sea level. But the water that has long favored Rotterdam also threatens it. Merchants founded the city, now Europe's largest port. Water rings Rotterdam, the Netherlands' second-largest largest city, at the confluence of the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt rivers, about 19 miles from the North Sea.
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