The World in a Grain by Vince Beiser

Author:Vince Beiser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

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The only real way to completely avoid the pitfalls of beach nourishment while also saving coastal cities is to move those cities inland. Retreat is a radical notion, but it’s one that a number of researchers are actively promoting.

It’s hard to imagine that actually happening, though. So far we have chosen defense over retreat. Miami Beach is investing $400 million in building seawalls, elevating streets, and installing pumps to combat an anticipated increase in flooding caused by the rising ocean. Around the world, coastal cities like Jakarta, Indonesia, and Bangkok, Thailand, are spending billions on giant seawalls and other protective measures.

In retrospect, it was obviously folly to build so much so close to the ocean’s edge. But now there are millions of people and billions of dollars worth of buildings in place; how could we undo all that? No one knows, and few are asking. Which leaves us more or less obliged to keep rebuilding beaches, both as defenses against the ocean and magnets for tourists. The question is, how long can we keep it up before either the money or the sand runs out?

Mike Jenkins is a lean, fortyish coastal engineer with Applied Technology & Management, an engineering firm specializing in seaside structures like marinas and artificial islands. He has also overseen lots of beach nourishment projects. He knows far better than most what the challenges are.

“At some point, it is unsustainable,” he said in a conference room of his company’s headquarters in West Palm Beach. “Now, that might be a hundred years away, or two hundred years away, but at some point you’re going to dredge everything that you can get your hands on.” We can extend that time by reengineering some of the man-made inlets and jetties that block the sand’s flow, he said, but in the long run there’s an even bigger problem. “The ultimate source of supply is rivers. When you start talking decades out, the fact that all the rivers are dammed means that that supply of sand isn’t there anymore. But it could take a hundred years before you start noticing.

“The demographics are such that people are moving to the coast. Infrastructure is being built on the coast,” Jenkins said. “Now, is that smart? Probably not. But we’re doing it.”

We keep on building our castles of sand, heedless of the incoming tide.

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