Oilrigs should be used for homes in areas at risk of flooding, report says

Ben Webster, Environment Editor

Decommissioned North Sea oil platforms should be towed to the waterfronts of coastal cities at risk of flooding and converted into homes, shops and universities protected from rising sea levels, a study recommends.
Britain should not retreat from the waves but embrace them, adapting to climate change and consequent flooding by building new communities, either on stilts or floating platforms.
A team of senior architects, engineers and civil servants, appointed by the Royal Institute of British Architects and Institution of Civil Engineers, considered the options for responding to a 6ft 6in (2m) rise in sea levels by the end of the century.
UK Climate Projections, published last year by the Government, predicted that sea levels would rise by up to 76cm by 2095 but said that there was small risk of a more rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet, resulting in a 1.9m rise by the end of the century. About ten million people already live in areas at risk of flooding in England and Wales and the Government spends £570 million a year on coastal defences.

The study, entitled Facing up to Rising Sea Levels, focused on two cities, Kingston-upon-Hull and Portsmouth, where much of the urban area is up to 3m above the high-tide mark. Hull is particularly vulnerable, with a flood in 2007 damaging 8,000 homes, 100 businesses and 91 of the city’s 99 schools.
The study proposed lining Hull’s waterfront with dozens of rigs from depleted North Sea oil and gasfields. Some of the rigs would be devoted to housing while others would become parks or entertainment complexes.
The rigs would be linked by walkways and every third one would have a bridge to the mainland. Energy for the homes and businesses would be generated by tidal-flow turbines suspended under the rigs.
The authors said that this approach would expose much of the existing city to the rising waters because the rigs would occupy areas that could otherwise have been used for concrete flood defences. However, they believe that the economies of coastal cities would be more likely to thrive if they accepted the loss of some areas and focused on building new communities.
“The extreme threat of flooding demands extreme measures be taken. We cannot defend everywhere. Letting water in can be seen in a positive light — not a defeatist policy,” it said.
In Portsmouth, the study recommended building a network of two-tiered piers into the Solent. Traffic would flow along the lower tier and homes and pedestrian areas would be built on top. The piers would act as groynes, reducing the rate of erosion of the coastline. In the existing city, homes would be redesigned with the living space upstairs.
David West, an architect and one of the authors, said: “The typical British approach of patching things up is just not a successful way of responding to rising sea levels. We need to speculate and look ahead 50 to 100 years, not in four-year political cycles. It’s about living with the sea, living with changes and doing something positive.”
Nick Hardiman, the Environment Agency’s coastal policy adviser, said that the study fitted with the agency’s policy of holding or advancing the coastline in some areas but allowing it to be eroded in others. “We need to be prepared for the extreme scenario of a 1.9m rise in the sea level by the end of the century.”