{"id":396971,"date":"2021-01-19T19:59:33","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T03:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcnews&p=396971"},"modified":"2021-12-17T11:56:20","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T19:56:20","slug":"facing-sea-level-rise-miami-beach-uses-gis-to-prioritize-mitigation-projects","status":"publish","type":"arcnews","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/facing-sea-level-rise-miami-beach-uses-gis-to-prioritize-mitigation-projects","title":{"rendered":"Facing Sea Level Rise, Miami Beach Uses GIS to Prioritize Mitigation Projects"},"author":6921,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[463771,981,15412],"tags":[280362,8012,282802,160952,1421],"arcnews_issues":[472041],"class_list":["post-396971","arcnews","type-arcnews","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-green-infrastructure","category-oceans","tag-flood-management-solutions","tag-flooding","tag-florida","tag-infrastructure","tag-sea-level-rise","arcnews_issues-winter-2021","arcnews_sections-your-work"],"acf":{"short_description":" Miami Beach, Florida, is one of the most vulnerable areas for sea level rise in the United States.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Miami Beach, Florida, which lies on a barrier island a few miles off the coast of Miami, is one of the most vulnerable areas for sea level rise in the United States, if not the world.\r\n\r\nBy the end of the century, global mean sea levels could rise by about 11 to 43 inches, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). South Florida is likely to face 17 to 31 inches of sea level rise by 2060, according to projections made last year at the Southeast Florida Climate Leadership Summit. And Miami Beach has a unique, bowl-like geography wherein the center of the island is lower than its beaches to the east and coastal defenses to the west, making it even more prone to flooding.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s why the city has been working with Esri partner Jacobs, a technical consulting engineering firm, to find out where its biggest flooding concerns are and determine how to consolidate public works projects to better prepare for sea level rise while minimizing disruptions to residents. Using ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Spatial Analyst, the team at Jacobs combined climate change projections with the city\u2019s own infrastructural data\u2014and now, Miami Beach is tackling these projects in a more efficient and effective way.\r\n

Flood Management That Works\u2014But There\u2019s More to Do<\/h2>\r\nThe city of Miami Beach already experiences unusual flooding. Higher-than-normal tides, called king tides, now flood the streets regularly.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt could actually be a sunny day, and you\u2019ll see flooding in the streets and have to wade through water to get to your car,\u201d said Matt Alvarez, the Miami-Dade executive manager at Jacobs.\r\n\r\n\u201cAdding significant rain events to those high tides causes substantial flooding in the lowest-lying areas of the city,\u201d added Roy Coley, director of the Public Works Department for the City of Miami Beach.\r\n\r\nThe city began mitigating tidal flooding back in 2013. It implemented a cutting-edge stormwater management plan that took into consideration 30-year forecasts for sea level rise. Miami Beach started elevating its most vulnerable roads and improving its stormwater pumping system."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":396921,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\"We were one of the first cities to actually take bold steps to manage flooding,\u201d said Coley.\r\n\r\nBut predictions have changed since then, and by 2017, the city\u2019s new mayor, Dan Gelber, wanted to ensure that Miami Beach was on track to actually diminish the effects of sea level rise. Working with the Rockefeller Foundation, the city brought in the Urban Land Institute (ULI) to review the projects and plans it already had under way.\r\n\r\nThe organization did a comprehensive analysis and concluded that, overall, the city had done many things well. However, there was still room for improvement\u2014especially when it came to implementing blue and green infrastructure (a way of using urban green spaces to manage floodwaters) and ensuring that each project provided multiple benefits to the surrounding neighborhoods.\r\n\r\nTo put ULI\u2019s recommendations into action, the City of Miami Beach enlisted Jacobs. The team there\u2014which consists of Alvarez; Jason Bird, the company\u2019s Florida resilience lead; hydrologists; planners; and a robust group of GIS experts and spatial analysts\u2014used GIS to visualize all the data.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was fundamental for us to map out where things were happening, where the needs were, and how to prioritize the different neighborhood projects,\u201d said Alvarez. \u201cI\u2019m not sure how we would\u2019ve done this project without GIS.\u201d\r\n

Taking On Sea level Rise While Minimizing Disruptions<\/h2>\r\nWith ArcGIS Pro and the Spatial Analyst extension, the team at Jacobs mapped out Miami Beach\u2019s infrastructural priorities. From there, it determined ways to improve how the city is preparing for sea level rise.\r\n\r\nThe City of Miami Beach provided extensive amounts of data from its asset and capital management program, which Jacobs combined with its own data on flood risk and city service needs. The project had three aims:\r\n