PANEL 1 : GLOBAL SCALE ISSUES

How Climate Affects Infrastructure: Worldwide Approaches to Living with Water

John Atkeison: Global climate change is a series of regional climate changes that impact regions physically and socially beyond their own. Climate change, of which Hurricane Katrina is in some ways a result, is a crisis that is "killing people, killing cities, [and] killing cultures." According to leading scientist Dr. Keri Emmanuel, the "aggregate power of hurricane seasons has tripled" due to global warming, and would not have caused such structural damage without global warming. The crisis of human-caused global climate change is a reality that Mr. Atkeison calls on everyone to accept and under which everyone should operate. With this perspective, long term planning and non-structural solutions are crucial to living with water.

A unified, widespread global conversation on and vocabulary for hydrological systems and innovative engineering, such as the dialogue between the Netherlands and New Orleans, will lead to a fluid sharing of information across regions that benefits all parties involved. By tying hydrological and meteorological models together holistically, data can be gathered on watersheds and regional hydrology to predict future changes in regional landscapes caused by both flooding and climate change. - Jose Villalobos

Villasenor creates predictions of increasingly rapid sea level rise on all nations in the Gulf. One study in particular predicts that the sea level will rise six meters by 2020, causing catastrophic flooding for Louisiana and Cozumel. His research focuses on the catastrophic impacts of sea level rise on the region’s agriculture and commerce, as well as innovations and historical Aztec precedent in engineering resilience in sea level rise and flooding. - Jose Raynal Villasenor

Climate change is not a time period we must prepare for, but a period we are already undergoing globally and in which New Orleans is "on the front lines." The recent flooding in New Orleans is a direct result of the collapsing ecosystem upon which it exists. But the catastrophic results of this flooding, unlike those of earthquakes, for example, come from a "cultural or institutional denial" of this reality which results in a haphazard, non-systems
approach to relief. - Paul Kemp

politics-cartoon The Community & Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI) defines a resilient community as one that must "anticipate, reduce, respond and recover." Colten identifies "political turnover" as a common obstacle to resiliency, which relies on consistent values and long term planning. Strategies for resiliency must be developed locally in order to respond to the region's hazards and to preserve "residual social memory." while also responding to global trends. These strategies must then be better communicated globally in order to reach communities struggling with similar hazards. - Craig Colten

Noting southern Louisiana as a prime example, the definition of infrastructure must expand to include not only "public works and facilities," but also nature. This acknowledges the capacity of coastal marshes and wetlands to provide hurricane and storm surge protection for human and wildlife populations along the coast. Conflict arises as climate change and the resulting sea level rise endanger this critical form of infrastructure, while the ability of our structural levee system to succeed in protecting this region from catastrophic flooding events relies on ecological productivity. Local, state and national investment are required in order to restore the capacities of nature as a form of non-structural solution for hazard mitigation. - Chris Pulaski

Leadership has not fully acknowledged that climate change is already reality. Taxpayers locally still fund portions of land that are now submerged here in coastal Louisiana, and nationally still fund programs focused on recovery, rather than resiliency. Hydrological issues, such as sea level rise, precipitation, and the availability of water are often thought of as coastal issues, but they must be considered an issue of national concern and security. - Mark Davis