October 23, 2013

Toledo's Chronic Urban Flooding

One of the projects I have been working on as a Digital Coast Fellow is researching and writing up this mini-case study about Toledo's chronic flooding issues for the Great Lakes Planning Guide.  Two thoughts about this process:
1.  It's really hard to distill such a rich story into just a couple paragraphs!!  Research took quite a while, and locating appropriate images that really do help tell the story (with attendant sources and permissions) was a bear of a project in and of itself.
2.  Although this is a local story, as part of the Planning Guide, it reminds me that individual stories like this are a part of the whole.  Climate change causes more frequent and heavier rainfall in many places, and stories like Toledo's help bring peoples' attention to the importance of mitigating climate change itself by decreasing our individual engagement in carbon-emitting practices, as well as proactive planning and management of infrastructure.  I am proud that this is a piece of the repertoire of work that I do.

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