“Four feet of sea level rise will create havoc and disaster in Florida and around the planet,” said Gary Griggs, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Photo Credit:Pixels
Florida’s rising sea levels are creating a growing crisis, putting homes, business and infrastructure along the state’s shoreline at risk. While the sea levels are rising faster than ever, communities in particularly South Florida face intensifying flooding and storm damage.
As the majority of Florida’s population lives along the coastline, the rise in sea levels threatens the state’s economy, infrastructure and environment. Although the Biden administration allocated $78.7 million for climate resilience in Florida, Southeast Florida received less than 1% of the funding despite facing among the greatest risks. With limited federal support, local and state governments are left to handle the sea level rise adaptation to prepare for the future.
The record of global average sea level rise began about 150 years ago. Since then, there has been a continuous rise in sea level. But in recent decades, the rate of sea level rise has increased significantly, with Florida standing out as the state most profoundly affected by the trend. Seventy-five percent of Florida’s population lives on the 8,400 miles of shoreline, making a substantial portion of the population vulnerable to rising sea levels.
Florida is 100 feet above sea level which makes it the third lowest-lying state in U.S. In addition to the long shoreline, this puts the state at particular risk of sea level rise. South Florida is the area in Florida that has seen the most impacts of flooding from sea level rise. South Florida rests on a limestone bedrock, making the area particularly affected by flooding from storms. The saltwater coming from the storm is absorbed into the limestone, making drainage impossible.
According to U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), sea level rise is a threat to social, economic and ecological systems, especially to the 40% of U.S. population that lives along coastlines. USGCRP is a program that coordinates research and the environment and its social impacts.
According to the White House, damages from climate change, including flooding and hurricanes, were about $120 billion a year from 2017 to 2022.
Additionally, within just 15 years, Southeast Florida could experience 17 inches of sea level rise which would result in over $4.2 billion in property value loss and 720 jobs affected, according to a report published by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact in 2020.
To help families, businesses and communities recover from events related to climate change and deal with sea level rise, the federal government needs to adjust its budget, according to Candace Vashling, associate director of climate, energy, environment and science at the Office of Management and Budget in the White House.
Vashling pointed out the federal government can spend between $25 billion and $128 billion annually on expenditures related to climate change, such as protecting 12,195 individual federal buildings at risk of inundation or responding to increased hurricane frequency and coastal disasters. With an annual federal budget exceeding $4 trillion, there are funds available for every public interest, including safeguarding community health from flooding and other climate change-related events.
Protecting hard infrastructure systems is important in battling against sea level rise. Roadways are at particular risk for flooding as they traditionally are built at elevations lower than the finished floor of structures, according to a study on sea level rise in Southeast Florida.
The research found that infrastructure systems are co-located with roadways which creates a need to prioritize where funds are spent on transportation infrastructure. More resistant and adaptive infrastructure and network systems are needed to develop new performance measures.
"Sea level rise is an exacerbating factor that causes stresses on infrastructure and road systems which creates challenges to get to work and school,” said Megan Houston, director of Palm Beach County’s Office of Resilience.
However, very limited federal funding has been dedicated to the infrastructure and road systems in South Florida, one of the most financially vulnerable regions due to rising sea levels. Without enough investment in flood protection, coastal cities are at risk of losing trillions of dollars, according to recent research.
In 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration proposed allocating $78.7 million for projects throughout Florida to make communities and the economy more resilient to climate change. Sixteen projects were organized to create jobs and improve the economic and environmental outcomes for coastal communities, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which provides scientific data and information about climate science, adaptation and mitigation.
Four out of the 16 projects involved making local communities more resilient to sea level rise, with only one out of the 16 projects targeting Southeast Florida. Southeast Florida has a population of 6.6 million people, which constitutes one-third of the state’s population and one-third of the economy, according to the US Census Bureau.
The project in Miami-Dade County did not involve resiliency to sea level rise. Instead, the museum “Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science” received $497,000 of the $78.7 million to give high school students training in restoring coral reefs, mangroves and beach dunes. This means that Southeast Florida was given less than 1% of the funding, while one-third of the state’s population continues to be at risk of the impacts of sea level rise.
In the absence of federal assistance, local governments in Southeast Florida are now tasked with protecting their communities from the impacts of sea level rise.
“We have to make significant infrastructure investments to safeguard and restore South Florida’s water resources, ecosystems and communities from flooding, while also ensuring a sustainable water supply for the region’s needs,” said Jason Schultz, the public information coordinator at the South Florida Water Management District, a governmental organization that works to ensure the region’s water resources and ecosystems resiliency.
At a state level, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has a program that collaborates with coastal communities in the state to offer technical assistance and funding to help deal with flooding, erosion and habitat shifts.
Meanwhile, there is little that can be done to prevent global sea level rise, according to Gary Griggs, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
“We have the ability or potential to slow sea level rise if we halt the use of fossil fuels, reduce more carbon dioxide release and move to renewable energy sources as fast as possible,” Griggs said.
The sea level rise is putting South Florida's flood at risk of reaching more than 4 feet above high tide by 2050, according to Climate Central’s Program on sea level rise. Over half of the population in more than 100 towns and cities across Florida lives on land below 4 feet. Miami-Dade and Broward counties alone each have more people living below 4 feet above sea level than any state except Florida and Louisiana.
“Four feet of sea level rise will create havoc and disaster in Florida and around the planet,” Griggs said.
By Hedda Jarhall
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