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St. Augustine mayor travels to the Netherlands to learn about sea level rise solutions

Sea level rise has become a serious concern for coastal communities. In St. Augustine, the mayor decided to be proactive in looking for ways to protect the old city.

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- Sea level rise has become a serious concern for coastal communities.

In St. Augustine, the mayor decided to be proactive in looking for ways to protect the old city. She took a trip to the Netherlands, a country that manages to thrive even while a third of it is under sea level.

St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver has a set of flood prognosis maps for sea level rise. She pointed to a map with predictions for three feet of rise in the year 2050. "Everything that's yellow will be underwater all the time." Much of the city of St. Augustine was in yellow.

She took her city maps with her to the Netherlands last month "to see how the Dutch manage water."

She was one of 12 people from the U.S. who took the trip. She said the Dutch are "managing turbulent weather, managing water. It's all part of who they are. So there's nothing like picking the brains of people who live with it all the time."

She showed the maps to someone with Deltares, which is an institute that studies water and designs ways to deal with it.

"I showed him our sea level maps and he looked at it and said, 'that looks like Jakarta.'"

Jakarta. The capital of Indonesia. It sits on the water, like St. Augustine. And it floods. It's that kind of perspective Shaver wanted to get.

"Why that matters to me? These are people who've looked at issues all over the globe, and there's nothing like experience to figure out what the right solution set is," she said.

Shaver said the solutions to sea level rise have to be specifically designed for St. Augustine. Some possibilities include living shorelines which absorb water, seawalls, and maybe even reservoirs. For example, during major storms, she said, "Francis Field could be a reservoir for storm surges. That's the way some people use their public spaces."

However, Shaver says she does not have specific projects she wants.

"That is not my call," she said. "But what is my job is, is to bring resources and take the long view and see what makes sense for our city."

She said the city did not pay for her trip. She plans to tell city staff and the city commission about what she saw, about her experiences and she wants to share her Dutch contacts.

"They understand the dynamics of managing water and protecting people, protecting economic drivers, and they have lots and lots of ways to do this," she said. "It's tapping into all the expertise we can."

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