The show and him i wasnt always successful i was born with a silver spoon in my mouth i had to find success came. When. In recent years file and flooding has been occurring regularly in coastal towns all around the world monsoons storms cyclamens and hurricanes coast thousands of deaths and forced displacement of millions of people. Why is some cities more aggressive than others what forces of nature lead to these disasters and is Global Warming the primary cause. Of the Hurrican Sandy devastated new york in two thousand and twelve scientists around the world intensified their efforts to identify the causes of these disasters. On october the twenty ninth two thousand and twelve Hurricane Sandy moved steadily closer to the east coast of the United States threatening new york city. Costs were alarming water levels were predicted to rise by five metres as a safety measure or public spaces and ports subways tunnels under bridges were close to the public. The man declared a state of emergency the city of new york evacuated three hundred seventy five thousand People Living in flood of all areas. Back in the two thousand and five i said new york city. I was going to be flooded it was not a question of if but when i couldnt say exactly when and nobody else on this planet could say exactly when but i knew it was going to happen and it happened. Hospitals were evacuated fires broke out neighborhoods were stranded. The flood plunged the city into camps. From the planets perspective floods are routinely events we regard them as the most destructive natural disaster. Or coastal floods very widely and they cause tremendous damage and actually mortality i mean two hundred thousand people have been killed in the last thirty years from coastal floods alone. Theres been a lot of major coastal flood disasters over the last few years and in one thousand nine hundred one in bangladesh about one hundred thirty eight thousand people are estimated to have died in burma or in thousand eight hundred like them the grizz about one hundred thirty eight thousand people again were estimated to be killed and more recently in the philippines typhoon hyaena six thousand people were killed and those are just a few examples even in the developed world people have died in Hurricane Katrina about two thousand people were killed in about eight hundred of those were in new orleans and inside clone sandy about two hundred people were killed more and more people are moving to cities globally now one half the people live in cities that happened fairly recently moving from human beings being a rural sort of species to being an urban species and most of all many of those cities are actually on the cultist. No place in the world is safe from flooding but the sources of these cataclysms vary from region to region. In new york for example it was a special phenomenon that caused so much damage. The standing it was not the winds it was not the rain it was the storm surge the ocean coming up higher much higher than normal and washing ashore going into all the little harbors and the little rivers and flooding and finding the vulnerable low places and flooding all around and thats why it was so bad. Out at sea violent winds of a hurricane push surface waters towards the coast the Sea Level Rises creating a destructive super wave called the storm surge. In Hurricane Sandys case other natural factors may decide to ation. What is the stage of the tide when the hurricane hits and for sandy it hit high tide but also there was a full moon every two weeks theres an extra strong tide we say a spring tide and it just so happened that not only was the tide high but there was extra high tide due to the moon and then the storm hit and thats why the so. Damaging. What is the difference between a tsunami and a storm surge tsunami is caused by an undersea earthquake. Secret is why brace a big earthquake it creates a big way that travels a very high speed maybe seven hundred kilometers an hour and as it comes close to the land it gets higher and higher and stronger and it breaks and then it chews shore and creates a huge amount of destruction and death thats a tsunami. In new york the storm surge hit the city at night the extent of its destruction wasnt apparent until daylight. We saw a range of impacts really saw failures of our infrastructure system and how and really how it how our infrastructure is linked and the Power Systems were impacted our Transportation Systems were impacted with the tunnels being flooded our Telecommunications Systems ultimately went down we had gas lines because of a breakdown in supply chain for a look at Fuels Network and of course the impact on people and neighborhoods were just as severe. Its interesting how much damage there is in america during floods because they dont have good defenses. Always amazed that they dont. Have better defenses because they have the money. They have Technical Knowledge but they choose not to use it. People. Often say. It was a very rare event it will never happen again i said no no no it will happen again and it will get worse and worse because as the Climate Changes and the sea rises very slowly but comes up. The danger will be more. Research has led scientists to better understand the parameters of extreme flooding according to specialists Global Warming well amplify these conditions in the future. Well we have another problem which is probably going to be the worst of all which is the Sea Level Rise due to Climate Change sea level has already risen by approximately twenty centimeters since the late Nineteenth Century and this rise has exhilarated and it will accelerate further due to the ongoing Global Warming. You know maybe too many people one meter of Sea Level Rise doesnt even sound much because on a come day when you stand on the beach and you think of water as one meter high it would make a difference when it really hits you is during a storm search because of course a storm surge already starts one meter higher than without the Sea Level Rise then and it actually runs up more than one meter higher because there are some effects like reduced friction in the higher sea level that maybe a storm surge run disproportionately higher when you start off with an elevated sea level due to Global Warming. The planet is warming up the levels of water in the oceans are constantly rising yet some regions of the world remain less affected than others this shows the pattern of Sea Level Rise since the year nine hundred ninety three and it shows that it has risen in most places but not everywhere here in the eastern pacific we see an area where the sea level even has dropped in this period but on the other side here in the western pacific it has risen much more than ever edge because obviously the trade winds have increased there pushing the water over here and piling it up on the east asian causing. It to be of some coastal towns and cities can increase the risk of flooding thats particularly true of large cities situated on deltas like bangkok shanghai and new orleans. And. These deltas are incredibly flat you could go one hundred kilometers and the elevation ups and downs would only be a few meters at most so theyre extremely flat so putting a city on these flat lands is rather easy to do. This is a collection. Of many of the deltas of the world the deltas are the land surface where the rivers water has brought the sediments to the coastline and accumulated in these large deposits we know that in the last thirty or so years sea level has been going up around three millimeters per year three millimeters per year is quite small. And so yes in the long term you know fifty years one hundred years you want to make sure youre sure lines are protected by closely studying deltas researches uncovered an unexpected phenomenon we would put instruments in the rivers we would put instruments in the coastal ocean we would be monitoring how the channels shifted around and all the sediments we found that the tide gauges suggested that the deltas were saying on average four times faster then the other areas and so we knew something was up something on that deltas was happening. Bangkok is an impressive city situated on the delta of the river crisscrossed by two thousand six hundred kilometers of canals it is an astonishing mix a combination of modern metropolis and a traditional village. The capital of thailand has grown considerably in just a few decades and the rate of growth has had substantial consequences. Thirty five years ago population of bangkok is for half life or five million but right now its about ten million more than ten million so people need water lets look about thirty years ago you know to really clear and really clean so its ok to use you know a rainwater and house something but you know. Hes getting weaker so it is difficult to use the rainwater you know for supply funding or for use or point any supply so people started you know undergrad. Water so when we have. Been underground water the probe in start. Due to excessive pumping of water the city is sinking this phenomenon is called ground subsidence examples can be seen on many streets so this is the evidence something in. This here use actually. On the part. Of the foundation and in this area its actually on my foundation but this. Area used to be. Ok but now. Theyre pumping. Ok everywhere in bangkok the ground moves and subsides. You know if it is evidence of profit it ok. You can see barrier its not even if theres like a way of it is because the barrier is a little kid over to foundation my way over here in between a barrier if not on the foundation is in the foyer so if criterion outside but. Of the highway is out of site every year for years there department highway have to come here and feeling more at fault the concrete. The entire city is affected by this phenomenon of subsidence. Some areas were particularly affected during the terrible floods that hit thailand in two thousand and eleven the monsoon poured close to sixteen billion cubic meters of water onto the streets of bangkok that protected dykes burst and entire streets remained underwater for several months. Peoples houses will be looted damaged peoples cars will be washed away peoples fields will be flooded out cultural fields on the outskirts of bangkok at one point about twelve and a half percent of the land in thailand Agricultural Land was underwater. From north to south thailands rivers drain into the River Channel priam. Mountain waters from the north flow towards bangkok and the gulf of thailand the additional volume of monsoon rain waters is a major cause of flooding in the delta. If the tree falls of water we call the freeze just to meet the same time same place exactly the right moment when. The first is the waterfall the north. The second sister is water from the high tide that boat history is water from the sky the end you imagine when the high tide take the place and the water from the north coming down here its already almost four point five at the new. At the imagine to give their income in the city both sides. In two thousand and eleven the water level built up in the city and its infrastructure is well on able to accommodate it. In the past bangkok had networks of canals and. Would. Serve as natural drainage flowing from the north through bangkok. Thailand with more people and Housing Construction infrastructure. Networks of canals and river waste and what always pretty much blocked disappear. You have international or you have enough for a state. Floodways. I think if you look at the route course. It would lead us. To accommodate its growing population new housing was built in areas which provided drainage for the city after monsoons urbanization has transformed the landscape of bangkok rendering the city more vulnerable to flooding. We realize that the flooding is actually in some area where there was a you know factory that newser groundwater bumping up. And then we start to do the morning during the day in the area of bangkok and we found that thirty years ago the grass outside in red is about ten centimeters per year which is quite a lot so then we are starting to inforce not to use underground water not to use underground water and started in red it is Getting Better from ten centimeters into so when there are five and up to now before its completely we have about three centimeter per year. In bangkok the water pumping is limited. So the factory if they really move out near the shoreline and do it a ground water pumping because it is the allow and that area is minute or shall i subside ok creating you know their intuition are the sea water. As the Sea Level Rises the coastal lands of bangkok are sinking the waters of encroached by five kilometers in twenty years no one imagined a city could sink at such a right sections of the coastline of bangkok have disappeared. Is the tiny capital the only city threatened or is it just one among many others. The thing. If we go around the world we see that really substance is mainly an issue in asian cities bangkok is maybe a classical example where the center of the city has sunk two or three meters in the Twentieth Century making it much more prone to flooding tokyo has sunk up to four meters in the Twentieth Century but the entire city but the bit of the city built on the delta around the port has gone though up to four meters a soccer in japan has gone down three meters tianjin gone down two meters shanghai has subsided three meters jakarta in indonesia subsided four meters and is still subsiding very fast today manila probably a metre calcutta and aca were not really sure but theyre almost certainly going down and then places like new Orleans New Orleans has subsided up to three meters and is continuing to subside vancouver in canada areas there have subsided in excess of a meter and so all these cities ive named have become much more. Vulnerable to coastal flooding because of this substance without any consideration of other changes. Everywhere in the world citizens sinking because of excessive pumping of ground water for big cities situated on down to other factors can worsen this subsidence the ground under these regions has a natural tendency to compact in the past rivers brought new settlements to partly compensate for this subsidence dams built by man have upset this delicate balance and sometimes when we had dams put in eventually that sediment was. No longer able to get to the cause it was being sequestered behind the dams in the reservoirs and then the shoreline was shift landward and weve been building one large dam on earth every day on average for the last time hundred thirty hundred forty years and you say in one thousand nine hundred there were just a very few dams and you will see in red where new dams are forming first in the u. S. Japan india. So the issue of dams is very much part of the story. By diverting river waters with dams and pumping greater quantities of ground water man has upset the balance of Natural Forces yet the growth of more huge cities seems inevitable. Located on the Yangtze Delta shanghai symbolizes the race for Economic Development with twenty three Million People it is the most populated city in china. It is about is Chinese Success and ams to become the leading Financial Hub in asia. Shanghai continues to grow. Its expansion seems limitless in spite of the threats from nature. Life in this city has always been mocked by the time i fand the word which alarms the population is the chinese term for a tropical typhoon which brings violent winds and torrential rains periodic late wreaking havoc on the city. If the Sea Level Rises the most direct impact on shanghai comes from coastal waters once the maximum water level is reached and the city is flooded from heavy rain or upstream flooding the drainage system wont be able to handle the excess water. High is faced with a huge problem in cases of massive flooding all strong tides its canals will be unable to evacuate such a surplus of water in an effort to minute. Minus the damage the chinese built the barrier. To entry and. Here we have a flood its meant to prevent the one poor title waters from entering the river. Plus of the normal it lies on the riverbed so it doesnt spoil the landscape it rises every morning and order to block the high tide when at the end of its house. This mobile dike protects an area that has sunk by more than three meters in a hundred years due to excessive pumping of water from the water table. Beginning in one thousand nine hundred twenty is chinese all floridians have been measuring the steady sinking of the city. To study the phenomenon shanghai established a ground subsidence institute the only one of its kind in the world. Lucian and. Africa say yes until the one nine hundred sixty s. Too much ground water was removed in shanghai. Only this led to a severe increase in subsidence. You mentioned earlier dont have this three d. Model shows how subsidence occurred at different times. Of the late that you mentioned here you can see what happened between the one nine hundred sixty s. And two thousand and ten and the mention you can see this of sidelights have been worsening steadily until the implementation of efficient measures to slow it down and keep its evolution under control but how they got there what. A coach. It was only in the one nine hundred sixty is that laws were created to regulate the pumping of water the chinese were the first to recognize the scale of the subsidence. Subsidence is a reversible once. It poses a significant threat skyscrapers. And it also has an impact on urban infrastructures. Since subsidence was established in one thousand nine hundred eighty one in shan