Changing Coastline

Sea Level Rise in Miami

Sea level rise is a very real concern for Miami-Dade County as the region is low lying and even a slight rise will have serious anthropocentric and ecological implications. Using current scientific projections and LIDAR data of South Florida, the following maps were generated by Peter Harlem from the Southeast Environmental Research Center at Florida International University.

In the climate science world we talk a lot about communication and how to effectively communicate the reality of what is projected to happen, while trying to not repel people by using what they would deem as scare tactics. The following maps are alarming without being dramatized in any way and are even somewhat conservative in their estimates. While they provide an effective visual it is important to realize that these maps portray sea level rise statically without taking into account the implications of storm surges or tropical storms. For example, while a map of 6 feet of sea level rise may show several remaining slivers of land along a barrier beach, most likely that would be washed away by that point by high winter tides and storm surges. As a disclaimer there are a plethora of other variables that complicate the South Florida sea level rise picture like the porousness of the bedrock, which will result in problems with groundwater as well as the low elevation to the Everglades to the West of the county, which these maps do not depict.

These maps depict the county with up to 10 feet of rise but it is important to recognize that even a marginal amount of sea level rise will result in serious problems for Miami. The city presently has a gravity feed sewage system, meaning it relies upon gravity to draw the wastewater into the septic system, which is not an advantageous thing when most of the city sits only a few feet above sea level and in some places, only a few inches. Current predictions estimate about 1 1/2 feet of rise by 2050 and 3 to 5 feet of rise by the end of the century. While that may seem like a ways off, with only 8 inches of rise Miami will lose 65% of the functionality of its sewage system. And we could see those 8 inches in a mere 15 years. In other words, we need to be preparing now while we can still focus on preparedness rather than reactionary planning.

The effect of sea level rise for this area includes but is not limited to the following impacts:

• Inundating much of coastal and interior Miami-Dade County
• Seriously degrading freshwater availability county wide
• Changing the climate from a terrestrial to an oceanic process dominated system
• Unique ecological problems as anthropogenically altered areas are inundated
• Damaging anthropogenic structures including those used to manage coastal ecosystems
• Losing freshwater storage capacity
• Losing present coastal wetlands with resulting changea in dependent biological systems

View Sea Level Rise Implications for Key Biscayne

LIDAR Maps of Sea Level Rise for Miami-Dade County