Some people’s eyes “glaze over” in long-view discussions of climate change and sea level rise impacts, points out Leonard Berry, Ph.D. But talk about its impact on an individual’s property during a 30-year mortgage cycle and people start paying heed, he adds.
Coastal Risk Consulting (CRS), of which he is vice president, devised an aggregated set of data sources projecting on a parcel level the extent to which sea level rise and storm surge flooding would affect each parcel over 20 to 30 years, assigning a color-coded green-to-red flood risk score. A Coastal Risk Resource Analysis (CRRA) offers a detailed breakdown of maps and diagrams identifying the property’s most vulnerable parts. The tool assists coastal homeowners, businesses, and governments in the US and abroad in evaluating and mitigating rising sea level risks in planning, sustainable design and construction, transportation, water management, flood risk and coastal management, emergency preparedness, health impact assessment, and biodiversity issues. CRC’s tool automates LIDAR with storm and tidal flood projections—encompassing sea level rise—and heavy rainfall. Prediction models integrate data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US Geological Survey, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and NASA.
CRC works with entire communities, such as Key Biscayne, FL in a recent vulnerability assessment, and has potential projects emerging abroad. One project—commissioned by The Guardian newspaper—assessed President Trump’s Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago residence before his election.
FEMA flood maps don’t show vulnerability variabilities, says Berry, which “depend on when houses were built or the way they’re designed. Two houses on a block can be vulnerable to flooding and the rest are not,” he says. “Identifying that as a problem, the solution becomes much more focused.” CRC partners with engineering companies to provide solutions. A common mitigation is ensuring critical infrastructure is not located in the lower parts of a building. CRC works with a woman who has designed a removable barrier to be placed around a house during periodic storm and high-tide events. Many Florida cities are heavily investing in reversible pumps. “In south Florida, we’ve got porous limestone underneath most structures, so water doesn’t only come over the barrier, it comes under the barrier,” says Berry. The CRC team also has analyzed rainfall and groundwater flooding. In Hawaii, one end-user requested tsunami projections.
What He Does Day to Day
An emeritus professor of geosciences at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Berry maintains an office on campus, working with graduate students or on national and international projects. His afternoons are spent at his home office working on CRC quality-control issues.
What Led Him to This Line of Work
Berry earned all of his academic degrees at the University of Bristol in England, focusing on geography, geology, and geomorphology. His early work focused on tropical soils and erosion. A 1965 trip to Tanzania to study tropical landforms inspired Berry to do research that “applied to problems important to the society you’re in,” he says. Eventually, he started and directed the Florida Center for Environmental Studies at FAU. In 2012, Berry testified before the US Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy regarding current and future impacts of sea level rise in Florida. He helped start CRC in 2014.
What He Likes Best About His Work
Berry says the joy in his work was exemplified by a town hall meeting where he served on a panel with local officials presenting the work his company had done. The 120 attendees’ questions were not focused on “doom and gloom,” he says, but on the issues and mitigation recommendations.
His Greatest Challenge
“The greatest challenge is getting a broader sense of current and future problems built into the infrastructure of people’s minds and days, not in a scary way, but in a way that invites them to see the issue is really important,” says Berry. “In some cases, it’s a question of ‘If it’s not a crisis, let’s not deal with it.’ And yet it is a crisis. It’s like a disease you ought to be tested for and if you have it, you can then have treatment. But if you ignore it, it’s going to get to a point where it’s not going to be a good situation.”