The United States has added over two million housings units to the nation's coast in the last 20 years, and construction is not slowing down, according to a new report from Reuters.
Florida, with over 1300 miles of beaches, has the most coastline out of any of the contiguous states. It also now has a third of the nation's coastal building. Experts warn that building in these areas puts both life and property at risk due to erosion, rising sea levels from climate change and potential storm damage.
Dr. Courtney Hackney, the director of University of North Florida’s coastal biology program, points to Florida’s proximity to sea level as part of the problem for coastal failure.
“Florida is lucky in that the geologic platform is far more stable than Louisiana and some of the other states where the apparent sea level rises fast, and also our erosion rate is slower than many states,” he said. "But, we also have many areas around of coast that are really close to sea level. So, they’re extremely vulnerable and, as everyone in Florida knows, hurricanes are a common occurrence here.”
Hackney joined Melissa Ross to discuss how the state's coasts are affected by development, erosion and climate change.
About five million people reside on Florida's sea shore, and more construction is expected. Reuters found that despite having laws intended to curb development in areas at the greatest risk, the state government offers powerful incentives for building to continue. This has trapped the state in a cycle of working to maintain its perpetually eroding shores.
Taxpayer subsidies go towards beach nourishment and replenishment programs that attempt to rebuild beaches after they have been broken down by erosion and other factors. Hackney doesn’t see this as something entirely sustainable unless you have infinite amounts of money and sand.
“The solutions are either you armor the shoreline, which means that the beach for the public goes away, or you nourish. The nourishing facet works to the degree that those are sacrificial beaches,” he said. “As you build up the beach one place, if you don’t do it along the entire coastline, that beach becomes the focus of wave energy, which means it erodes more quickly. The more time that goes on, the faster the erosion occurs.”
Hackney said that finding sand for these programs is difficult because of finite sources. He added that many don't realize that most of the ocean floor is rock and shell, not sand.
Florida leads the country in spending money on beach nourishment. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spent $150 million to replenish 39 miles of Florida’s beaches in 2013.
As sea levels continue to rise, and beaches continue to erode, Hackney said that Florida could look entirely different in the future. There are already parts of the state under water that did not use to be; for example, portions of state road A1A south of St. Augustine have been detoured away from the original route because of erosion.
Hackney said that until coastal home building actually stops, the coastlines - and the homes built on them - are going to continue to be threatened.
You can follow Melissa Ross on Twitter @MelissainJax and Annie Black @helloannieblack.
