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Climate Change Impacts on Law and Policy in Florida

Climate change and sea level rise have made obsolete the notion that law and policy develop in the context of a relatively stable natural environment. The need of communities to adapt to climate change and sea level rise reflects the need for laws and policies governing those communities to facilitate rather than undermine such adaptation. This chapter provides an overview of law and policy issues at three levels of government—state, local, and federal. It highlights changes in state law and policy in Florida that relate to climate change and sea level rise. The chapter also focuses on local governments, and includes sections about regional collaborations of local governments, financial issues and climate change/sea level rise at the local level, examinations of impacts on infrastructure, and impacts on the public’s use of beaches in Florida. The chapter concludes with discussion of a policy change related to climate change and sea level rise at the federal level that impacts local governments.

Coupling infrastructure resilience and flood risk assessment via copulas analyses for a coastal green-grey-blue drainage system under extreme weather events

This study sheds light on the coupling of potential flood risk and drainage infrastructure resilience of low-lying areas of a coastal urban watershed to evaluate flood hazards and their possible driving forces. Copulas analyses with the aid of joint probability of simultaneous occurrence help characterize the complexity for hazard classification based on subsequent exposure to inundation under varying levels of adaptive capacity. Adaptive measures of consideration include traditional flood proofing structures and low impact development facilities for a coastal urban watershed – the Cross Bayou watershed, near Tampa Bay, Florida. Findings indicate that coupling flood risk and infrastructure resilience is achievable through the careful formulation of flood risk associated with a resilience metric, which is a function of the predicted hazards, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity. The results also give insights into improving existing methodologies for municipalities in flood management practices such as incorporating a multicriteria flood impact assessment that couples risk and resilience in a common evaluation framework.

Roads To Nowhere In Four States: State And Local Governments In The Atlantic Southeast Facing Sea Level Rise

Local governments in the coastal zone play a key role in adapting to the changing climate.1 This Article presents an analysis of coastal communities in four states, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, and provides three proposals for local governments that take action to address climate impacts: (1) redefining the scope of the duties that define reasonable conduct for governments making decisions about public infrastructure in an era of rising sea levels; (2) defining the scope of sovereign immunity protections in a way that encourages innovative and creative decisionmaking in an era of climate uncertainty; and (3) calling for consistent adaptation duties and authorities at the state level as a crucial first step in mending the legal-standards patchwork that currently exists at the state, county, and city levels in our four-state study area.

Reasonable Investment-Backed Expectations: Should Notice Of Rising Seas Lead To Falling Expectations For Coastal Property Purchasers?

Sea level is rising, and the rate of this rise is increasing.result, past trends and problems with coastal flooding, storm surge, salt water intrusion, and erosion will be forward. As government’s role is to help protect property, and the resources common to the people, in coastal areas present enormous challenges for coastal areas and government entities with responsibility or authority in these areas. Such entities should be utilizing the tools at their disposal to keep people, property, and infrastructure safe from the rising seas