Green infrastructure can protect ports from growing environmental risks. Here's how

According to a recent study of US ports, only ten out of 300 have developed a resiliency plan. A 2016 report concluded that few ports around the world are prepared for sea level rise, powerful hurricanes and large storms surges. The current global cost to protect all ports is estimated to be up to US $205 billion by 2100, and yet the reduction in global trade without this investment would be worse.

Given the slow response of most national governments to secure ports, locally driven solutions are starting to fill the void. And these solutions tend to be more innovative and less costly while providing protection as well as local amenities. From the Port of Tallinn in Estonia to the Port of San Diego in Southern California to the Port of Houston on the Texas coast, a handful of ports are creating public-private collaborations to combine green solutions with more traditional hard infrastructure that is the go-to approach for most national governments.

One of the largest green infrastructure plans that could become a model for ports around the world is emerging from Galveston Bay, Texas. Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel are home to one of the largest oil refining and petrochemical production complexes in the world, contributing more than 13% of the United States refining capacity, a large share of jet and military fuel, as well as more than 25% of the production of key chemicals such as ethylene and propylene. There are over 4,000 oil and petrochemical storage tanks along the Houston Ship Channel and thousands more in the surrounding area.

Rice University’s SSPEED Center in Houston (severe storm prediction, education and evacuation from disasters) calculated that a direct hit of a category 4 hurricane would be devastating, causing the worst environmental disaster in United States history. What’s more, it would severely threaten national security as well as the regional and national economies due to the loss of the refining and chemical production from the region. With more than 800,000 people living along the bay’s western shoreline subject to significant surge flooding, the loss of life and environmental degradation would be staggering.

What the US government has proposed is for the Army Corp of Engineers to build a barrier and gate system in the Gulf of Mexico. This is certainly needed. The project, the largest environmental engineering development in US history, will take two decades to build and is estimated at $31 billion. And yet, the current plan would not provide protection to the upper bay should a CAT 4 or larger storm make a direct hit. Entire communities would be severely damaged by flooding and contamination caused by the surge into the petrochemical facilities along the bay and the connected Houston Ship Channel.