I recently moved to a coastal area, and I work near the coast as well for local government. Certain portions of my work unfortunately focus on “climate change.” A BIG focus is “sea level rise.” As a result, I pay attention to this and I’m beginning to notice inconsistent reports on the amount of “sea level rise” might impact different areas of the coast. I haven’t had time to research for sauce but I plan to do so. Sea level is sea level. If it rises, it should rise consistently around the world, unless there is a weather system like a hurricane, right?
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Welcome to the flood mapping rabbit hole. The whole idea started with the brilliant idea to 'get it all digital' for local governments, globally. Since 2015 or so, lots of environment planning departments have been busy trying to predict where to draw 'red zones' with the intention to ban people from building there, or make them build houses on ginormous piles.
The idea was to create some sort of GIS dashboard that banks and insurance companies can point to, to charge extra money, or refuse applications, or something - nobody actually thought it out.
It's amazing, (and this happened in our district) when a property developer gets a second opinion from an engineer, to counter the local government maps. The council usually accept the engineer's report because it's from ... well, an engineer - not the pink haired lady wearing odd-socks who got the job of coloring in environment planning maps, while also making odd demands about grease traps that were already provided for in the building codes, but had to suddenly be bigger - but I digress.
The engineer's reports create 'steps' in the supposed 'once in a hundred year flood' levels. On the map, the proposed new subdivision is high and dry, while the surrounding properties look like a lake. (???).
Another oddity is that a recent flooding, in my neck of the woods, was proclaimed a '200-year' flood. So, the '100-year' flood map didn't predict the damage. (!).
Funny. Reminds me of a time decades ago when FIL's small real estate office was found to be in the flood plain. But right across the street wasn't. Trust me, it was odd to say the least. We had a 500 year(?) flood in 1993 up and down the Mississippi River. We joked that when a guy was hand-drawing the flood map, someone bumped his elbow and he drew a line around the office. During the 500yr flood, there was no water even close to the office, it was horseshit.😂
yep. So that corroborates my story just fine.
In my opinion, it is a scam. But hey everyone takes it so seriously when it is on a 'map'.