Augusta Practices Resilience in Fighting Floods

By Terri  L. Turner, AICP

The first event, under Declaration DR-880, occurred on October 12, 1990, when, as a result of the convergence of the remnants of both Tropical Storm Marco and Hurricane Klaus (then downgraded to a tropical storm, as well), Augusta experienced some of the worst flooding in its recent history as 15 inches of rain fell during a 100-year-plus storm event causing more than $150 million in property damage. At one point, 2.79 inches of rain fell in approximately one hour, causing widespread flooding, roads flooding to a depth where people had to be rescued from their vehicles, and evacuation of numerous homes.

Another event that same month had localized rainfall exceeding 8.5 inches, producing flooding characterized as a 100-year event.

August 1992 was marked by an intense rain event that caused localized flooding of a number of roads and “rapid local flooding” of several homes. Evacuations of residents occurred in Hollywood Subdivision along Rocky Creek.

In August 1994, the Weather Bureau reported 4.2 inches in a 24-hour period.

The Rocky Creek/Hollywood Subdivision area continued to be plagued by flooding when 3.75 inches of rain, characterized as a 10-year storm event, fell in September 1995, causing traffic accidents along major transportation routes near Rocky Creek and evacuation of 12 families in the Hollywood Subdivision.

Rainfall from 2 to 4 inches in a six-to-nine hour period in March 1996 caused several streams to flood beyond their banks and into homes, including those in Hollywood Subdivision. The flash flooding experienced during that storm event closed several major highways, which were virtually underwater.

Flash flooding in December 1997 caused several highways to be flooded by nearby creeks. The flooded roads included the highly traveled Richmond Hill Road.

March 8, 1998, found Rae’s Creek flooding low-lying areas, although no homes were reported to have flooded. A subsequent storm on March 11 resulted in DR 1209, as more than 3 inches of rain fell on already saturated ground and caused major road and residential flooding in the Rocky Creek area.

March was not to provide the only major storm event for 1998. September delivered 8.5 inches of rain from Tropical Storm Earl over a 14-hour period, causing flash flooding along several streams. About 50 people were evacuated from two subdivisions, several streets were closed due to flooding, and one shelter was opened to house 82 people.

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Design For Flooding: Architecture, Landscape, And Urban Design For Resilience To Climate Change

The complete guide to planning and design for water sustainability, as well as flooding and natural disasters Architects, urban planners, and urban designers, as well as water resources engineers and landscape architects will discover that Design for Flooding presents the best practices and lessons to create buildings and communities that are more resilient in the face of severe weather, climate change, and the prospect of rising sea level. Design for Flooding covers technical and institutional issues along with new design and business opportunities built upon: Fundamentals of climate and weather, stormwater and floodplain management Best practices of flood-resistant design and adaption to sea level rise Multidisciplinary design that integrates sound ecological and engineering principles Innovative design and construction to protect and improve water security " Design for Flooding defines the need and opportunity for planners, architects, landscape architects, engineers, and conservation biologists to work together to develop the mix of inland and coastal flooding solutions required for a comprehensive response to climate change." From the Foreword by Daniel Williams, FAIA, author of Sustainable Design: Ecology, Architecture, and Planning " Design for Flooding should be a major tool for the design professions, for public agencies, and for civic activists, indeed for everyone who wishes to bring a genuinely 'intelligent' design for water to their communities. It is a call to action and demonstrates that we have the knowledge, the tools, and the capability to better manage the water system on which we depend." From the Foreword by Carol Franklin, FASLA A portfolio of award-winning designs illustrates practical and visionary projects to prepare for a resilient future, including: A case study of Climate's Long-term Impacts on Metro Boston (CLIMB) analyzes four alternatives to prepare for climate change A design charrette sponsored by The Regional Plan Association of New York illustrates creative concepts for waterfront revitalization and flood protection Lessons from the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States indicate the effectiveness of long-term preparedness planning combined with phased mitigation and renewal projects Examples include renovations and small buildings, showing how every project at any scale is a design opportunity to increase the sustainability and resilience of our communities, water, and ecosystem services

 
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Urbanisation is a complex dynamic process playing out over multiple scales of space and time (Alberti et al 2003). It is both a social phenomenon and physical transformation of landscapes that is now clearly at the forefront of defining humanity’s relationship with the biosphere (IHDP 2005). Urban landscapes represent probably the most complex mosaic of land cover and multiple land uses of any landscape and as such provide important large-scale probing experiments of the effects of global change on ecosystems (e.g. global warming and increased nitrogen deposition). Urbanisation and urban landscapes have recently been identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as research areas where significant knowledge gaps exist (McGranahan et al. 2005).
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SESs resilience or urban resilience can be defined as the self-organization capacity of a social/economic system while undergoing ecosystem change so as to maintain its structures and functions. Therefore, on the basis of maximum power principle, “urban resilience” is further interpreted as a social/economic system’s capacity to draw low entropy energy and use it properly to maintain its structure. In addition to ecological energetic principles, urban resilience should be viewed from the systems perspective by analyzing the interactions of components in the ecological-economic systems to reflect the mechanism of urban resilience change. It is the change of natural ecosystem that will affect ecosystem functions and services, and further reduce the social/economic system’s self-regulatory capacity and its resilience. The critical processes and components affecting resilience of the urban system are autocatalysis and high quality energy storage with autocatalysis.

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