Maya Burke is with the Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel. Her group projects that by the year 2100, seas could rise in the region by 2.5 to 8 feet.
"That's an extraordinary spread in terms of what you plan for and so all the more important that communities are working together to sort of reach consensus in terms of what they do to protect people, property, and health, safety, and welfare," Burke says.
Florida has no official estimates of projected sea level rise. Various global and regional entities like Burke's group have been making their own projections. Now, at the behest of Governor Ron DeSantis, a proposal before lawmakers would direct the Department of Environmental Protection to create an official statewide sea level rise projection. Rep. Demi Busatta Cabrera (R-Coral Gables) is sponsoring the proposal. It would also spend $100 million a year to fund local projects aimed at combatting sea level rise and flooding.
"We definitely live in the most beautiful state, and of course, I'm biased on that one, but we need to do what we can to protect it. You know, protect our homes, protect our communities, protect our businesses, and protect our state as a whole for future generations, so we don't leave them with nothing or set them up for even more hardship," Cabrera says.
The proposal is called "Resilient Florida." It directs local governments to evaluate their sea level rise and flooding risks, develop projects to address those concerns and submit them to water management districts. Those districts would evaluate the proposals and give them to the Department of Environmental Protection, which would determine which projects get funding.
Jane West is with 1000 friends of Florida, a non-profit advocacy group. She's glad to see Florida lawmakers taking climate change seriously. Yet she's concerned that the type of projects that will get funded will be more focused on building sea walls—which don't address saltwater intrusion into drinking water supplies.
"Coastal armoring, putting up seawalls isn't going to solve the problem because we have a very porous geology here in Florida. So as the seas rise, so do the groundwater levels, so you can't put a wall up around that—so we can't build our way out of this problem," West says.
West says the state needs to look at more innovative solutions like living shorelines which use nature to create marshes to protect sandy beaches. Overall, West says the bill has a lot of good in it.
"For example, it creates the Florida Flood Hub for applied research and innovation and that will be based out of USF College of Marine Science, and that Hub will organize all existing data needs, coordinate research funds, and establish community-based programs to improve flood monitoring. So that's really exciting," West says.
