Managed Retreat

During the week of image capture in November 2021 I started hearing a term I hadn’t encountered before: Managed Retreat

Managed retreat involves the purposeful, coordinated movement of people and buildings away from risks. This may involve the movement of a person, infrastructure (e.g., building or road), or community. It can occur in response to a variety of hazards such as flood, wildfire, or drought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managed_retreat

That’s what is happening in Grand Forks with the decision to give North Ruckle back to the river.

When most people think managed retreat coastal changes come to mind. With changes in Climate melting more and more ice at both poles sea level has been rising. So communities right on the coasts are starting to see the effects – the sea is coming further inland and the land is eroding away.

More and more coastal forests are becoming ghost forests. Forests destroyed by the incursion of salt water into their root system’s bedding,

Climate change is exacerbating weather conditions around the world. In the US west there’s a drought and it’s getting worse and worse. The Colorado River _{^{(1, 2, 3)}} flow is shrinking while the amount humans take from it grows. This cannot go on . . . some communities will end up sacrificed because with no water you can’t have a town.

Some of the effects of climate change are shifts in precipitation patterns: more precipitation in places that don’t need it at times when it’s not needed OR not enough precipitation in places and at times when it is needed.

What happened to Grand Forks in 2018 was a combination of Spring Rains peaking coinciding in time with rapid Snow Melt in the mountains of the watershed that feeds the two rivers that meet here. That literally meet adjacent to North Ruckle.

That was a 200 year flood. Those predictions are the result of calculations that weren’t developed to take into account the long term effects of climate change. But climate change is happening . . . and Grand Forks is only 125 years old.

The possibility of another 200 year flood happening before another 75 years is up might actually be pretty good. The city decided not to take that chance. And sacrificing North Ruckle was part of the resulting plan . . .