we have built our cities around water
water to drink water to naval transport
water sustains life water enables growth
but it also comes with significant risk
and uncertainty since 1980
we have had 28 major flooding events 38
tropical cyclone events each one of
those has resulted in over a billion
dollars in damage in 2017 we had 14
sorry we had 5 major hurricanes and
that’s just in the North Atlantic so
given these realities what approaches
can we take to build cities that can be
more resilient traditionally we’ve
managed water infrastructure by figuring
out what we need to do and our
approaches are predicated on our
understanding of future conditions civil
engineers are always trying to predict
the future and we build with acceptable
risk
now we frequently have events that we
think are unexpected a civil engineer
will tell you oh that’s not unexpected
that’s just unlikely or rare hurricane
harvey was a 500 year event these are
the things we talk about this is how we
describe these things to ourselves
superstorm sandy was a tenth one in
10,000 year event hurricanes never head
in that direction we’ve never seen an
event in the North Atlantic this large
this far north
these events are rare and those of us
that build cities we have ways of
quantifying this uncertainty the really
key thing when you hear anything about
the frequency of events is that we
assume that we understand the behavior
of the underlying systems so when you
hear these kinds of things think about
do we really understand the behavior of
the underlying systems and we have ways
of talking about this
civil engineering we talk about return
periods so you’ll hear oh that was a 100
year event or it had a 1% probability of
happening in any given year the question
we have today is what if we don’t
fundamentally understand the underlying
system what do we build then so before I
get into a specific example I want to
talk a little bit about outcomes
ultimately cities are all about outcomes
they’re the things that we expect cities
are built for people people expect to
have clean water people expect to be
safe from flooding further we expect to
be able to do things like go boating and
fishing swimming at the beach these are
all reasonable things to do and we
should expect to be able to do them but
you guys don’t think about outcomes what
you think about is city should just work
and most importantly we have a right to
live with dignity and we have a right to
live and save healthy thriving
communities so I’m going to jump into an
example how can we think about these
problems differently what might we be
able to do and I want to talk about a
specific place in a specific point in
time it’s one that you’re probably very
familiar with from recent events Ormond
Beach Florida is located just north of
Daytona Beach on the east coast of
Florida if you go there there’s a
residential community it’s about 550
acres houses it looks like a typical
subdivision in in Florida when it rains
water hits the homes it hits the
pavement and it runs off it runs off
into a series of five large lakes and
this isn’t a typical of Florida and when
it rains that lake system fills up and
traditionally historically what’s
happened is that when the water reaches
a certain level a series of pumps kick
on there’s not a lot of gravity in
Florida it’s very flat a series of pumps
kick on and start to pump that facility
out to the ocean to minimize flooding
now imagine that you live in ormond
beach and at september 20 2017 and
hurricane Irma is just off the south
side of Florida and it’s approaching and
you remember in 2009 when your
neighborhood had significant flooding
and you had to evacuate you take a
moment flipping back between CNN and The
Weather Channel to look outside your
window and you notice something
extraordinary something you haven’t seen
before the storm hasn’t arrived yet and
yet the lakes outside your window are a
couple of feet lower than they were a
couple of hours earlier you realize that
the system that you rely on to protect
your home and family is acting before
the storm has ever arrived so this is a
dramatic change from what you’ve seen in
the past so this is an opportunity it’s
an example of systems being able to act
before things occur rather than
traditionally in response to them and
it’s not just about this is a view of
her mo this is literally what it looked
like at that moment I described a pretty
scary place to be you’re located on the
number 2 so it’s not really just about
Ormond Beach though visit these problems
are worldwide this is an example of a
facility in Beckley West Virginia little
Beckley but it’s an example of systems
that are able to act on their own in
advance in the way that I described they
watch the weather and they can take
action without people in the loop and
this isn’t fundamentally revolutionary
we’ve been able people have been able to
take these types of actions in real time
by watching the weather on large
projects hydroelectric dams it’s not
that we haven’t been able to operate
Lake Mead effectively for a long time
looking at climate and weather or large
flood control facilities but they
require pee
to be there and to make these decisions
and technology has enabled us not to be
able to just do this as a very rare kind
of human involved activity but it allows
us to take hundreds thousands even
millions of subcomponents of our cities
and weave them together integrate
intelligence and to get very different
outcomes as I talked about and indeed
around the country at this very moment
there’s 65 million gallons of storage in
21 states that are operating like this
just five years ago every one of those
facilities was passive there weren’t any
people making decisions
there wasn’t a technological way for
using those systems more effectively and
it’s pretty stunning this just shows
what these things look like they’re
actually pretty basic out in the field
but as I said the outcomes are the most
important part this is a large facility
thinking on its own during a recent
rainfall in Fairfax Virginia but I want
you to think bigger so this is just you
know water
it’s just cities but this way of
thinking the ability to act in advance
instead of just reacting to what happens
we now have the technology to take this
intelligence this thoughtfulness our
engagement around outcomes and directly
build it into the way our cities operate
or other processes operate and then
lastly I just want to leave you with the
thought we may not know what the future
holds but we can build cities to adapt
to our collective uncertain future thank
you
you
water to drink water to naval transport
water sustains life water enables growth
but it also comes with significant risk
and uncertainty since 1980
we have had 28 major flooding events 38
tropical cyclone events each one of
those has resulted in over a billion
dollars in damage in 2017 we had 14
sorry we had 5 major hurricanes and
that’s just in the North Atlantic so
given these realities what approaches
can we take to build cities that can be
more resilient traditionally we’ve
managed water infrastructure by figuring
out what we need to do and our
approaches are predicated on our
understanding of future conditions civil
engineers are always trying to predict
the future and we build with acceptable
risk
now we frequently have events that we
think are unexpected a civil engineer
will tell you oh that’s not unexpected
that’s just unlikely or rare hurricane
harvey was a 500 year event these are
the things we talk about this is how we
describe these things to ourselves
superstorm sandy was a tenth one in
10,000 year event hurricanes never head
in that direction we’ve never seen an
event in the North Atlantic this large
this far north
these events are rare and those of us
that build cities we have ways of
quantifying this uncertainty the really
key thing when you hear anything about
the frequency of events is that we
assume that we understand the behavior
of the underlying systems so when you
hear these kinds of things think about
do we really understand the behavior of
the underlying systems and we have ways
of talking about this
civil engineering we talk about return
periods so you’ll hear oh that was a 100
year event or it had a 1% probability of
happening in any given year the question
we have today is what if we don’t
fundamentally understand the underlying
system what do we build then so before I
get into a specific example I want to
talk a little bit about outcomes
ultimately cities are all about outcomes
they’re the things that we expect cities
are built for people people expect to
have clean water people expect to be
safe from flooding further we expect to
be able to do things like go boating and
fishing swimming at the beach these are
all reasonable things to do and we
should expect to be able to do them but
you guys don’t think about outcomes what
you think about is city should just work
and most importantly we have a right to
live with dignity and we have a right to
live and save healthy thriving
communities so I’m going to jump into an
example how can we think about these
problems differently what might we be
able to do and I want to talk about a
specific place in a specific point in
time it’s one that you’re probably very
familiar with from recent events Ormond
Beach Florida is located just north of
Daytona Beach on the east coast of
Florida if you go there there’s a
residential community it’s about 550
acres houses it looks like a typical
subdivision in in Florida when it rains
water hits the homes it hits the
pavement and it runs off it runs off
into a series of five large lakes and
this isn’t a typical of Florida and when
it rains that lake system fills up and
traditionally historically what’s
happened is that when the water reaches
a certain level a series of pumps kick
on there’s not a lot of gravity in
Florida it’s very flat a series of pumps
kick on and start to pump that facility
out to the ocean to minimize flooding
now imagine that you live in ormond
beach and at september 20 2017 and
hurricane Irma is just off the south
side of Florida and it’s approaching and
you remember in 2009 when your
neighborhood had significant flooding
and you had to evacuate you take a
moment flipping back between CNN and The
Weather Channel to look outside your
window and you notice something
extraordinary something you haven’t seen
before the storm hasn’t arrived yet and
yet the lakes outside your window are a
couple of feet lower than they were a
couple of hours earlier you realize that
the system that you rely on to protect
your home and family is acting before
the storm has ever arrived so this is a
dramatic change from what you’ve seen in
the past so this is an opportunity it’s
an example of systems being able to act
before things occur rather than
traditionally in response to them and
it’s not just about this is a view of
her mo this is literally what it looked
like at that moment I described a pretty
scary place to be you’re located on the
number 2 so it’s not really just about
Ormond Beach though visit these problems
are worldwide this is an example of a
facility in Beckley West Virginia little
Beckley but it’s an example of systems
that are able to act on their own in
advance in the way that I described they
watch the weather and they can take
action without people in the loop and
this isn’t fundamentally revolutionary
we’ve been able people have been able to
take these types of actions in real time
by watching the weather on large
projects hydroelectric dams it’s not
that we haven’t been able to operate
Lake Mead effectively for a long time
looking at climate and weather or large
flood control facilities but they
require pee
to be there and to make these decisions
and technology has enabled us not to be
able to just do this as a very rare kind
of human involved activity but it allows
us to take hundreds thousands even
millions of subcomponents of our cities
and weave them together integrate
intelligence and to get very different
outcomes as I talked about and indeed
around the country at this very moment
there’s 65 million gallons of storage in
21 states that are operating like this
just five years ago every one of those
facilities was passive there weren’t any
people making decisions
there wasn’t a technological way for
using those systems more effectively and
it’s pretty stunning this just shows
what these things look like they’re
actually pretty basic out in the field
but as I said the outcomes are the most
important part this is a large facility
thinking on its own during a recent
rainfall in Fairfax Virginia but I want
you to think bigger so this is just you
know water
it’s just cities but this way of
thinking the ability to act in advance
instead of just reacting to what happens
we now have the technology to take this
intelligence this thoughtfulness our
engagement around outcomes and directly
build it into the way our cities operate
or other processes operate and then
lastly I just want to leave you with the
thought we may not know what the future
holds but we can build cities to adapt
to our collective uncertain future thank
you
you
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