You are required to research the infrastructure Miami Beach, in the US state of

Question

You are required to research the infrastructure Miami Beach, in the US state of Florida, has added in order to combat heavy rainfall and increasing water levels. Conduct an environmental risk analysis to identify the potential risks of Miami Beach not upgrading their infrastructure and the impacts of past and future infrastructure upgrades. After a full analysis of the problem, indicate if you believe these infrastructure upgrades are worth implementing. Keep your analysis to five pages or less. Make sure to reference your sources. Risk Analysis/Assessment Approach: • Identify the environmental issues. Here are a list of potential issues: Land and property, Social, Economic (don’t forget FEMA if they are involved) ,Traffic, Geology, Flora and fauna, Air quality, Water quality (including surface and groundwater) , Resources and waste You do not have to use all these or any of these issues, but you have to indicate issues. • Identify potential risks/impacts that fall under each of your identified issues. For example, under the environmental issue “Land and Property”, you could identify the risk of loss of land due to sea level rises. Under “Economic”, you could identify the impact of the cost to build the infrastructure. • Identify any potential mitigation measures in relation to these identified risks/impacts. Obviously, one mitigation measure to the risk of the loss of land would be to implement the building of new/upgraded infrastructure, but another would be to relocate communities. • Identify any risks/impacts that are likely to remain (or new ones created) after the application of these mitigation measures. • For each of your listed impacts, indicate if they are high, moderate, or low impact.

Explanation / Answer

Miami in US state of Florida was lashed by hurricane Irma resulting in streets filled with water and causing high damage to life and infrastructure. Thus there is a huge challenge to protect city from future violence and modernize infrastructure. Currently 1,019 projects have already been completed and approx 876 are still ongoing. Miami beach is implementing a plan to make city more protected against sea level rise. The city government calculates that it still must spend $400-500 million more to prevent Miami's coast from being vulnerable to future storms. The upgrade of infrastructure will help the city to protect from future hurricanes, storm which leads to flood and sea level rise. Past infrastructure stood a failure to the recent disaster being caused thus it shows an indication of alert that it require a perfect upgrade before another disaster hit the floor. Thus upgradation of infrastructure are worth implementing.

List of potential environment issues:

1) Lack of awareness among newcomers

Not many people who live here are born here. Thus it results in unawareness among people of type of disaster which they may face.

It impacts in panic situation during the warnings and storm days which increases the loss to high level.

To mitigate this proper camp and drills should be organised to make people understand the situation.

low impact

2) Coastal Development

Florida offers more coastal development which is certainly effecting the natural environment ofvthe area.

It impacts by resulting in climate change and makes coasts more vulnerable to hurricanes.

To mitigate this a proper propaganda should be prepared to reduce these activities and restrict people in doing so.

High Impact

3) The tourist economy

With increase in tourism demand of boats and jet skies have increased. This results in effecting the natural habitat of turtles and other water animals.

This impacts by effecting ecosystem thus results in change of climate and sea level rise.

To mitigate this a restriction should be imposed on people disturbing ecosystem of water.

Moderate Impact

4) land and property

With increase in polpulation and simultaneously sea level rise the availability of land in city is decreasing.

It impact the agricultural and ecosystem activities in the city.

Moderate Impact

5) Air quality

With decrease in ecosystem the forest cover is also decreasing which results in less purification of air. Thus air quality is getting bad day by day.

It can be mitigated by planting more trees and saving the forest ecosystem.

Moderate Impact

6) Water Quality

As drinking water is taken from shallow acquifer the city's drinking water is at serious risk of salt water intrusion.

It can be mitigated by proper water treatment plant being installed.

Moderate Impact

Risks that are likely to remain are:

Salt water inclusion,population increase, sea water rise.

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