Like this i could never completely disappear if you see all these stereotypes about africa its good to see you. Do something for your country but youre still the black guy with a. Afro germany starting december tenth d. W. In recent years extensive flooding around the world has increased causing catastrophic damage in many countries. Excessive pumping of ground water the building dams the added weight of huge buildings all contribute to the looming disaster as sea levels rise a number of coastal cities sink becoming more vulnerable to flooding. More than a third of the big urban centers located by the save our endangered threatening the Living Conditions of millions of people. Measuring the stakes in economic and human terms scientists agree that action must be taken quickly but what should be done how can a huge city and its inhabitants be protected from flooding hisle holes enough or should we reinvent the city for the twenty First Century and beyond this is an urgent question for engineers architects and urban planners or laboring to come up with solutions to rican sile man with nature. In thailand bangkok is a striking example of an urban center regularly subjected to floods which imposed terrible consequences on its population and disrupts the entire countrys economy. Piano monsoon brings rains which sustain its agriculture the timing of the season has become unpredictable in an era of Global Warming the government uses networks of dams to regulate the flow of water retaining it when there is rain releasing it during droughts. In two thousand and eleven the system is completely overwhelmed by that years weather patterns. Or in two thousand and eleven there are so many monsoon come to the country and especially to the north and part of thailand and there are too much water above the dam we have eight or nine dams in the middle of the country. The dam operator which is belong to the electrical generating corporate of thailand they not. It will be a drought or not so they kept the water for so long in to about sixty seventy eighty percent capacity of the dam to make sure that they have enough water for every case in. But somehow there is too much water so they have to leave the water and in order to lease about that then we need to fall fast at some short time so thats why we have the situation in two thousand and eleven that here water fall into the city of bangkok where there is no way to accordingly between them beforehand. As a result huge quantities of water were released into the rivers and before reaching the sea the waters poured into bangkok. Built in the one nine hundred eighty is the kings dike one hundred seventy kilometers long is normally able to protect the center of town from floodwaters in two thousand and eleven but damage south was submerged. The government then decided to raise the height of the dam by two meters. And six hundred thousand sandbags were deployed to save the city center. On the other side of the dike thousands of people were left to cope with the consequences of the flood. For three months inhabitants lived in dyess sanitary conditions the flood waters were contaminated by sewage and dead animals. But the people behind the a sandbag suffer. They want to take this bad little easter water into the t. V. So there were some fighting between the two sides of the people. God look at this filthy water how can people live like this theyre protected downtown bangkok but not the suburbs they only protected many body in the city of bangkok memory. And all the army intervene to protect the dying from the anger of the population. The human toll was enormous the floods also impacted the nations economy. Time and at the time the leading export of rice in the world lost a quarter of that years production. You may already know of that in. This area we have the right production and this is a rice bowl of the country and we need a lot of water to make sure that in the dry season during the flood. The production of the rice has been damaged. In bangkok where floods have many repercussions first and most heavily on the lives of inhabitants but also on the Financial Stability of the countries affected in washington d. C. Experts from the world bank calculate the social and Economic Costs of such disasters. The problem with the link between floods and poverty is that the poor are more vulnerable and proportionately lose more than the rich its a machine to increase inequality so if youre a little poorer than the others you live in an area which is more at risk and youll have more chance of losing what you have during the floods so trying to improve your economic status will become even more difficult. As you feel. Even with only twenty centimeters of Sea Level Rise if you take into account the subsidence mechanism you will see that the costs of flooding in these large coastal cities increases from six to seven billion dollars today to amounts that become absolutely gigantic. So in the scenario we were looking at where nothing is done at all we arrive at costs that amount to a trillion dollars this shows that the scenario where we do nothing is not realistic and i were just. When bangkok was facing that severe flood we realized that the city is not just a thai city it is a world city there was a total Economic Cost of almost forty five billion dollars because of the floods in late two thousand and eleven but perhaps even more striking was that is that the effect was felt all over the world the price of hard drives for computers went up by a hundred percent because fifty percent of hard drives in the world were being produced in and around bangkok at that point in time. The supply chains were disrupted but six thousand rules were affected one of the major airports was shut down this is one of the challenges of globalisation its a very integrated world and bangkok is very much part of that Global Supply chain and we felt that not just sitting here in bangkok but all over the world. A combination of factors rising sea levels ground subsidence and lack of protection has made bangkok extremely vulnerable. The thais have no better option than to reimagine the city. Their solution of moving is not possible we cannot move you know. Temple. There palace they can palace is not possible to move ok so what we have to do is we need to protect it. Before but on this of course yes we cant wait for disaster to strike before acting we have to do exactly the opposite it is we have to act before the disaster hits. The problem when you look at how things go politically in countries usually the major changes in regulations are the Big Investments for protection i place after a disaster. No next year nonaction is not an option we have to invest in coastal defenses in these large cities to protect the population and to protect the economy because we see that in many countries these coastal cities are central to economic activity. For actually the economic. As urban populations grow big urban centers develop accordingly. But what effective means of protection do they have. When we think about sort of. Responding to flood hazards theres really three things we can do in the general sense we can retreat so we can not live there in the first place so we we just theres nothing to be damaged. We can actually. Be used as accommodate or flood proof you can make sure the buildings are flooded theres no damage to make you can elevate building so theyre above the flood waters or you can protect which is maybe what most people would think of whereby you would build barriers dikes or big sand giunta whatever things that keep the sea out of the city. Building walls for protection is an ancient tradition in china. Chinese engineers took inspiration from the great wall when constructing coastal towns which is evident in the case of shanghai. Happened especially in a summer season. High tight and the storm and upstream come together so. Happened sometime in the sea level when mr quickly. And this is a. Good if such a stream situation happened this is a dangerous and very challenging. Kilometer such it. Is a protected. Coastal area. And then in the future. Probably in the bigger more. Only. On the other hand that it is also pay such as in the law to protect people from the sea cos theyre not a problem. The last. Wetlands are natural buffers they have the capacity to retain water and the intensity of. Their preservation is essential. But that we a lot of discussion well should the protect. Which to protect that. Lot only protect but also provide the habitat for. The fish so sharp i dont pay a lot of attention. To the two nature reserve. And for this we have to consider both the cheapest options and thats why theres a lot of work on the preservation of natural areas and wetlands that help cushion the impact of storms and are much less expensive than our defenses and also because we always need our new fences and dikes and strong protections particularly for the most densely Populated Areas think of Funding Resources so cities going to for them. So one can very well imagine having coastal areas protected by walls six eight or ten meters high we know how to do it technically the question is do we really want to live behind six eight or ten meter high walls. And is also exposed to major risks of flooding quakes. Tsunamis and typhoons the region regularly experiences extreme weather events. All forit is in tokyo have deployed an impressive Protection System. Tokyo is a major mega city maybe the largest mega city i dont know tokyo yokohama maybe thirty five Million People a lot of people and when you get a lot of people youre going to get substance they have great engineers and they started to understand the connection between human decisions and this rate of sinking and theyve largely changed their behavior as a country as a city and the rate of substances basically stopped so theres a great feedback with them between human Decision Making human action and whats happening on the landscape. To minimize flood risks three hundred years ago the japanese diverted the turn a river to make it flow into the Pacific Ocean instead of the bay of tokyo. The huge canal dug in the Twentieth Century also helps to drain excess water. Thanks. To complete the preventative measures engineers also created a vast underground drainage network. This complex is to handle water mainly flood water by retaining it so that there is less water in the soil when the flood happens. But. Its been used ninety one times over the past twelve years thats on average about seven times a year since the opening of the facility. To cope without quakes the underground network has many backup systems. And when a bigger that way or large flooding happens we have a backup plan a backup power system so this complex will still be operating normally. So theres no problem. Theres huge network is geared to deal with the types of extreme events tokyo experienced in the past. Champions port area is particularly vulnerable to flooding. Here another system protects the inhabitants from high coastal waters. For the case of storm side shorts and on the. Water comes from the bay and going into this tunnel and finally goes to. This small riba through the this leave our mouths and the water go into the smoke im going downtown tokyo and in downtown that would be the frog. From place to place so soon this smooth tunnel slowly about that tokyo is not the well protected that would come in through the into invaded into tokyo downtown area. So that we constructed dikes and this was and also. To protect this area. So were now passing on the inside of the. Height of the moon was almost one point five meters but after we saw out from the prophet that the line was on eight the height of the floor that i was three point five metres. Higher than a site so there are more than twenty in both on the world against the profession this area. All of these flood gates are remotely controlled. By whom. We control turn watergates from the center and if a typhoon is approaching tow. So the Meteorological Center will issue an alert for heavy rain and flooding and then well set ourselves in motion. We give the alert that the sea level is rising and check the gates. Attention citizens that floodgate is closing. It is also reinforced by sliding barriers within the streets of the city itself. So here is a sad story. And this. Site in case of stones and coming down here is a lot. Closed because on the other hand the other side. And hard to stop. After the are in the closed this side is unsafe area so the people should leave their car outside and then into the safe haven. It is possible for us to cultivate how much we lost. The case of pratt due to stone size and this amount is far much greater than the cost for countermeasure us so we comment that you would have to stop this huge fortune with a case of such a threat it is necessary to thanks present storm sites madia and those. That moves and this is really much cheaper than the possible loss of fortune. Japan system of defense against funding is predicated on the previous. Behavior of typhoons. In todays world Global Warming has altered the projections of the engineers for the case of the storm such. Warning is there being a very important no. Increase of surface temperature or ocean. Intensity increases in this century we find out that the tendency or behave be are coming to japanese island changed previously time home where storm came to japanese and hunt so then they speed up and run away from the island but listen to the. Long are in the iran. So this is what we are afraid that. Comes to japanese side and to talk to every. In the wake of increased intensity of natural disasters and the accident at fukushima the japanese are realistic sometimes projections even the most sophisticated cannot guarantee the safety of the population. Floodgates evacuation systems and Risk Awareness japan has developed an arsenal of defenses to cope with floods and minimize their impact. Elsewhere in the world many cities and even some highly developed have not sufficiently anticipated these risks consider the case of new york city in two thousand and twelve Hurrican Sandy revealed how few protective measures had been put in place. Civil authorities overlooked natures warning signals. Thats a little white box behind me is a very famous tire gauge its the second oldest gauge in the whole United States has been faithfully measuring the tides the rise and fall of the tides every day for since the last one hundred fifty years or more. In recent decades sea levels have risen significantly in the new york region increasing by four millimeters compared to three millimeters in the rest of the world. This difference may be explained by complex geological processes occurring on the American Continent. But this rising. Were measuring here up to date is mainly whats called the. Continental rebound from the last ice age when the whole north American Continent was covered in ice after the ice melt at the level of that up. Like a loaf of bread been baked and the crust rises but at the edges here new york is actually going down the whole thing is tilting. And so even though in the middle of the country its going up parents going down and its going down about thirty five centimeters every one hundred yes but that one example right. With with Climate Change from excess burning of fossil fuels oil coal and gas and the way up was fair we can expect the water level here to rise one or two meters within the eight before the end of the century and thats a lot thats a lot to worry about. Me. Behind me new york harbor and pass the statue of liberty we have the ocean for many years ive been proposing that we need a regional solution to the protection of new york city and northern new jersey not just the new york city solution not just the new jersey solution but a combined solution. The plan is to construct european style storm surge barriers across the entrance to the harbor where that where the hudson river empties into the ocean. Oceanographer Malcolm Bowman proposes a barrier to be constructed off the coast of new york and new jersey. This structure tens of kilometers long would provide protection for the city from the effects of storms. Many countries decided long ago to build similar structures. In the netherlands a third of its land is below sea level the doc should build over twenty five kilometers of front barrier since the nine hundred fifty s. The one that used to shelter is nine kilometers long and the longest and the one. In england downstream from london the thames barrier protects the city from seasonal shots. They sign of defense has proved effective against tide and storms but new yorkers have declined this option. The concept of the storm surge barriers have been out there. Really since the you know a little bit for sandy and then even in the aftermath of sandy the conversation the girl allowed or theres a false sense of security that comes with this idea that theres going to be a big wall thats going to protect us from the ocean instead we need to find a better way to reengage with water and recognize that were going to do everything we can to reduce that flood risk in projects that are that fit the local environment in a much better way that address the long term Sea Level Rise condition that also provide protection against coastal storms and that we can begin working on right now. Reconnecting with water being in harmony with the environment and adapting these terms describe a new concept that of resilience and their consume support this movement believe that new york cannot totally protect itself from floods therefore its best option is to accept its fate prepare to bounce back reinvent itself and live with a threat. To our vision for resilience is that our neighborhoods our economy our essential Public Services are ready to stand and emerge stronger from both the impacts of Climate Change and other twenty First Century threats and thats really its the linkage of those two things its the reduced impacts and its the quicker recovery times that really in compas what we mean by resiliency here in new york city. Urban resilience is the ability of a city not just to bounce back but in fact to thrive and grow in the face of both acute events which we call sharks and chronic events that we call street stresses were looking for Better Outcomes in cities. In sharks that can mean how quickly the cities do cities go back to normal how are they able to go on and you look at new york city for instance. Over the last fifteen years that had nine eleven terrorist attacks a big blackout as well as the crash. And the housing crisis that affected its primary industry the Financial Services sector and yet the city has been able to weather those events. Along with Superstorm Sandy and really continue to thrive in the face of them so that that looks like a little bit of what resilience in the. Reconstruction of new york depends on its capacity for resilience and on taking into account the climatic threat. Beginning his second term of office a few days after the passage of Hurricane Sandy us president barack obama wanted to rethink the city from a more global perspective under the title of rebuild by design obamas project has been intrusted to a Global Expert in Water Management dutchman. The specialist believes in the need for a holistic approach. I remember my first interview when i moved to new york in d. C. And the interview was on. And the first question was asked so mr oving are you going to build this storm surge barrier next to the verizon or rich and safeguard the region forever and i said no because it will not there is no Silver Bullet when it comes to Climate Change you need a lot of Silver Bullet you need a multitude of interventions that on a regional programatic scale during times can actually build the resiliency. We invest it months in collaborating with hundreds of organizations thousands of people selecting ten interdisciplinary world talented teams that worked in the region to only do research to captured or regions vulnerabilities and interdependencies also captured their stories the experiences of all the people that were hit hard by sandy and out of that research a real regional understanding emerge. This process has led to the creation of several open air laboratories intended to invent Global Solutions for new york their objective rethink urban planning to ensure better protection for the city while reconciling it with floodwater. Focusing on Manhattan Project intitled the. Dry line embodies this new approach. Though in a way the the big u. Is inspired by the high line the high line is this elevated park here on the west side of manhattan that has been. Placed on top of a decommissioned rail yard. This former elevated Railway Track in the heart of manhattan has been converted into a prominent extremely popular with new yorkers. So the design process we have used is that we took all of the flood recommendations that have been developed for the entire Lower Manhattan weve asked people what are their concerns what are their demands what are their dreams for their waterfront and try to see if we can take the necessity and the utility of protection and combine it with the dreams and the desires of the local community. And as a result of that the dry line is almost like an urban chameleon but it changes character and appearance depending on what neighborhood it goes through sometimes it it occupies the space under the elevated highway and turns it into pavilions or or tipping performs other times its almost like a giant pension at all times its part of the landscape that races and actually protects the park on the waterfront from the noise of the highway but also protects the city from from flooding. Out of manhattan Staten Island was seriously affected by Hurricane Sandy in two thousand and twelve. He architect seek to approach the question of flood protection while addressing environmental issues. As Landscape Architects we have a much wider view of the world and how cultural and Natural Systems are interrelated our project is really one thats trying to essentially adapt to an environment that is rapidly already shifting we have acidifying waters we have Sea Level Rise which is projected in some cases to be thirty two inches or upwards of thirty two inches in the outer harbor area which is an incredible amount if you can picture that to address this challenge the architect of his considered placing natural obstacles on the seabed along this coast. We will need to be thinking about how to live next to the water and with the water to have multiple lines of defense and the point of this project is also that it is a breakwater that is engineered to withstand wave action and the highest waves you know we are we are designing it to certain wave heights and wave philosophies. The urban planners of the rebuild by Design Project a redesigning the city to coexist with water while respecting the environment. Today only a part of new york is concerned with protective infrastructure as much of the population of new york than for remains exposed to flood risks. How can one protect cities from flooding without inclosing them within walls and barriers. Which. In europe hamburg successfully address this challenge in the inner City District of hafen city. Exposed as it is to the north sea this german city has experienced impressive floods in recent decades. This is one of the areas of hamburg which are regularly flooded in case of a heavy stop so. For instance not a sixty two when we had a very heavy storm surge the water was standing up here and at the heaviest storm surge we ever heard we were standing up here and to deal with this type of hazards that people have here in the house to seize take a steel doors which are closed in case that that water is coming. Situated in a flood zone and the new district of half the city has been entirely elevated to protect it from violent storms on the north sea. To have an city is an island is a river elbe s two are and it is supposed to bear forty five thousand jobs and tremendous development in terms of residential and commercial development. So how can you protect this area it gets their high Flooding Risk coming from the north sea we decided to raise alert in order to need the link its. Between the land and to water in terms of visibility and on the outside to protect their area. This solution addresses the need for cities to expand and provides an answer to the risk of flooding. The concept of hafen city in terms of flood protection and integrating a flood Protection System with a new urban living and design style for buildings is extremely unique internationally. On the one hand side it is a Protection System which does not exist in any city of the world and secondly it keeps a relationship between water and public spaces as a private ones its the interesting point is that it is a joint vision earth protecting this part of the city for the next hundred or two hundred years. Half and city concept can be very much a model for other cities especially when you build parts of society and you then you can really raise the land and not avoid to keep a big distance between the preferred waterfront locations on the other hand and having a protective frisk secure location to build on so i think and locations for example in the northern u. S. Or in other areas of the world that can be a forward looking base concept it could also be a concept for many asian cities which are built on new low lying flood plains and thats the benefit of having a flood protected solution and building cities in new close to the waterfront could be spreading from the idea of half an city to many more places which are now looking into solutions to be developed. In future the outskirts of big urban centers will see developments built over the water to provide better protection against flooding to answer increasing threats of flooding urban planners everywhere are trying to protect big cities from the attacks of the sea. In some cases they are even reshaping the coastal landscape. The area were living in now is called the entropy. Which essentially the air where human. Impact is the greatest force on the geological changes of our planet that human impact we damn rivers we flood the valleys we cause glaciers to melt we cause deforestation this sort of education we transform landscapes with with different fields of agriculture and we are causing sea levels to rise and water crisis is the number one global risk when it comes to crisis and it is hitting our societies our communities and our cities worse than ever and its going to increase over time are we ready for the change in those risk now were now two to four billion people will be devastated the next decades when it comes to water and its too much water because of Sea Level Rise and surges or too little water and drought and a bad quality of the water because manmade pollution manmade environmentalists contest. The human environmental and economic challenges are huge but large coastal cities at the center of this time emma will have to adapt. The question is will resilience become the best form of defense against the threat of floods. We have to work and build a new mindset we talk about this idea of resilience that resilience is not just about building hot infrastructure and building protective walls but its about changing the mindset of citizens changing the way governments and people who manage cities think about the future you have to basically be ready to accept the unpredictable accept and embrace uncertainty its no longer a world in which you can predict and plan and you will know exactly what the outcome is going to be five or ten years down the road. Were not going to ultimately stop the risk of flooding but its also about how do we manage that both before during and after some people say that. Yes. The same storm strike the exact same place but there will be other catastrophes because of where new york city is its in the path of hurricanes that we have every year the next one will be different but it could be just as devastating. Future that its actually. Increasing risk if we look at the facts in all the reports the burden is upon us to deal with those uncertain so if we want that future for our children and grandchildren if we want to be able to live tomorrow as we live today or even better we really have to invest more to be able to deal with these increasing. Strength. Of intelligence. Small arms of sticklebacks always manage to follow. A single one on its own can do that. So how do songs to bennett such capabilities. Research his have found a decisive in an ode. To borrow. And thirty minutes. Im a mother like two billion other mothers around the world i have one wish the best for my child. But in this is so easy in which breastfeeding is often frowned upon and adds will for me that abound with profits is more important than my babys well being how do i know how to make the right decision. Starting december ninth on d w. They know what like they know what we think. And soon theyll even know how we feel. Im not a real person im still just a piece of Software Scientists around the world are working to measure our emotions. So hopefully i can be a helpful piece of software the virtual person as a therapist or a robotic as a teacher neither would have human empathy. What does it mean. Cian need to do to create empathy and medical context what i disclose more information to a person or to computer in this case. The rhythms finster the feelings measuring emotion starting december sixteenth own t w