One thing all Tampa residents should be aware of is flooding in their community. The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council will host a Resilient Ready Symposium June 23. This symposium will discuss options for how to prevent flooding in Tampa as climate change continues to tighten its grasp on the region.
The symposium will focus on creating a more resilient region and on how to best protect the region from future flood threats. It takes place from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Tampa River Center, 402 W. Laurel Street, Tampa. It is open to the public, but reservations are filling fast.
How to prevent flooding in Tampa Bay
During the symposium, teams of multidisciplinary professionals will highlight the findings made during three charrettes. A charrette is an intensive, multi-disciplinary workshop with the aim of developing a design for a project or planning activity. They focused on these three areas:
Inland Site
Barrier Island Site
Waterfront Site
Some professionals that consulted on this project include planners, urban designers, landscape architects, engineers, hydrologists, and elected officials. They came together to better understand the current and future flood threats to the region and to plan for any necessary physical barriers at those sites.
“The three case study areas represent common landscape types and were chosen to represent a spectrum of flood-related problems facing the region,” said Sarah Vitale, Senior Planner and Urban Designer at the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. “These case studies can inspire and educate local leaders, and help them to become more ‘resilient ready’ to face our region’s current and future compound flooding challenges.”
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Innovative design concepts and strategies, as well as resources developed in collaboration with the cities of Tampa, St. Pete Beach and Oldsmar, will be highlighted during the symposium. These are adaptation strategies meant to protect communities in the Tampa Bay region and to protect investments from flood risks.
“The Tampa Bay region is vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate, including sea-level rise, rainfall, rising temperatures and heat events, droughts, and flooding and intense storms, all of which threaten human wellbeing and natural resources,” Vitale and Sullivan said. “The region is experiencing additional stressors that exacerbate these issues, including habitat and species loss, degradation of water quality, lack of affordable housing and others. These issues affect all communities in the region, thereby collaboration across governments and jurisdictions is needed to address them.”
Solutions that will be unveiled during the one-day event include highlighting the use of multi-functional green infrastructure systems and resilient site design practices.
“Florida, in some senses, is Ground Zero for climate change, sea-level rise, and flooding. Our planning and design processes must adapt and adjust for these pressures,” said Sullivan. “This project provides a toolkit for public and private sectors to use when exploring resilient construction and development projects.”
There will be panel discussions with community leaders, private sector design and engineering executives and government officials exploring topics such as innovative design solutions, funding strategies and how to engage the community in design solutions.
Involving the public
For this event, the regional planning council has partnered with the Urban Land Institute of Tampa Bay, which focuses on responsible land use, wise choices in growth and development and development and the positive economic future of the region’s communities.
“The Resilient Ready Tampa Bay project demonstrates the commitment of local governments to reduce the vulnerability of their local communities to the impacts of climate change, such as intensifying flooding,” said Vitale and Sean Sullivan, Executive Director of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, answering questions in a joint email. “It’s important that communities understand the risks they face and the gamut of possible solutions for mitigation. The conceptual designs developed during the Resilient Ready project can help the public to better understand the impact that innovative storm water management projects can have in reducing the risk of flooding while also creating beneficial community amenities.”
In addition to the June 23 symposium, the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council plans to convene local governments and municipalities, businesses and environmental stakeholders to create a policy guide for implementing shoreline protection strategies as storm intensity and sea-level rise increase. The initiative is funded by a grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The public can get involved by reporting flooding in their communities and supporting their local governments in the implementation of flood mitigation solutions, like those suggested in this project. They can also look at educational materials and resources that are available to the public.
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