Giving Rivers Room to Swell
March 27, 2019
With the record-setting floods in the Midwest providing stark evidence, many observers say it is time for the nation to shift from its usual mode of strengthening protective river barriers and rebuilding behind them to new strategies that take nature into greater account. Issues has a considerable track record in examining options, including a review of lessons from a massive midwestern flood in 1993, a look at how to rethink New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and a recent examination of how to improve the technical and institutional resiliency of infrastructure to withstand the effects of extreme weather events expected with climate change.