Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumLong Before Miami Sinks Into The Sea, It Will Run Out Of Water - Sea Water, Sewage Moving Fast
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From ground level, greater Miami looks like any American megacitya mostly dry expanse of buildings, roads, and lawns, sprinkled with the occasional canal or ornamental lake. But from above, the proportions of water and land are reversed. The glimmering metropolis between Biscayne Bay and the Everglades reveals itself to be a thin lattice of earth and concrete laid across a puddle that never stops forming. Water seeps up through the gravel under construction sites, nibbles at the edges of fresh subdivisions, and shimmers through the cracks and in-between places of the city above it.
Miami-Dade is built on the Biscayne Aquifer, 4,000 square miles of unusually shallow and porous limestone whose tiny air pockets are filled with rainwater and rivers running from the swamp to the ocean. The aquifer and the infrastructure that draws from it, cleans its water, and keeps it from overrunning the city combine to form a giant but fragile machine. Without this abundant source of fresh water, made cheap by its proximity to the surface, this hot, remote city could become uninhabitable.
Climate change is slowly pulling that machine apart. Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates that six feet of sea-level rise would put a quarter of Miamis homes underwater, rendering $200 billion of real estate worthless. But global warming poses a more immediate danger: The permeability that makes the aquifer so easily accessible also makes it vulnerable. Its very easy to contaminate our aquifer, says Rachel Silverstein, executive director of Miami Waterkeeper, a local environmental protection group. And the consequences could be sweeping. Drinking water supply is always an existential question.
County officials agree with her. The minute the world thinks your water supply is in danger, youve got a problem, says James Murley, chief resilience officer for Miami-Dade, although he adds that the countys water system remains one of the best in the U.S. The questions hanging over Miami and the rest of Southeast Florida are how long it can keep its water safe, and at what cost. As the region struggles with more visible climate problems, including increasingly frequent flooding and this summers toxic algae blooms, the risks to the aquifer grow, and theyre all the more insidious for being out of sight. If Miami-Dade cant protect its water supply, whether it can handle the other manifestations of climate change wont matter.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-29/miami-s-other-water-problem
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)All those zillion dollar high rise condos and businesses that are literally going to be underwater.
pansypoo53219
(20,976 posts)his area is about 7ft above sl. he might end up in a venice situation.