遇見未來?洪水恣肆的紐約城,安全最重要
The devastation wrought by Sandy is forcing New Yorkers to consider a whole host of measures – from fortress-like flood barriers to offering a buy-out to people living in flood-prone areas – to make the city safe from future storms.
桑迪造成的破壞迫使紐約人考慮一整套的措施——從堡壘一樣的防洪障礙到向洪水易發地區的人提供一個收容所——讓城市在未來的風暴中處於安全之地。"We are vulnerable," the state's governor, Andrew Cuomo, told reporters this week. "Anyone who thinks there is not a dramatic change in weather patterns is deny reality. We have a new reality and old systems." New York, with its 520 miles of coastline, is second only to New Orleans in the US for the numbers of people living within 4ft of the high tide mark, or about 200,000 people. There is also valuable property at risk – and those risks will only grow.
“我們是脆弱的，”州長安德魯•科莫本週告訴記者。“那些認爲氣候模式沒有戲劇性變化的人都是在否認現實。我們面臨新的現實和舊的系統。”紐約有520英里的海岸線，在4英尺的洪水下或約20萬人受困，僅次於新奧爾良。也面臨着寶貴的財產風險——那些風險只會與日俱增。As New Yorkers discovered this week, subways, power lines, and other infrastructure are also at risk from storm surges and flooding. And time is running out to find a solution. Flooding during Sandy even exceeded the disaster scenarios envisaged in a 2011 New York state government designed to help authorities plan for future climate change.
紐約人發現這個星期在暴風雨和洪水的衝擊下，地鐵、電線和其他基礎設施也面臨癱瘓。而找到解決方案的時間已不多了。桑迪期間的洪水甚至超過了2011年紐約州政府旨在幫助當局規劃未來氣候變化時設想的災難場景。
"The impacts we saw in the last couple of days were actually impacts we did not think we would see until the 2080s, such as the flooding in lower Manhattan, and in Long Island, the vulnerability of subway tubes and some of the airports," said Art DeGaetano, a Cornell University professor and director of the north-east regional climate centre, who was one of the authors of the report.
“在過去的幾天裏我們看到的影響實際上是我們認爲我們看不到的影響，直到2080年，例如洪水淹沒曼哈頓下城，在長島脆弱的地鐵系統和一些機場，” Art DeGaetano說，康奈爾大學的教授和東北地區氣候中心的主任，他是研究報告的作者之一。With sea-level rise, a common storm could prove as catastrophic as Sandy, putting about a third of the city's streets in a flood danger zone.
隨着海平面上升，一個常見的風暴都可能會像桑迪一樣災難性，把大約三分之一的城市街道置於洪水的危險地帶。The city is looking at a variety of options from big engineering projects, such as levees, sea walls and pumping stations, to offering a buy-out to people to move out of flood-prone areas.
這個城市正在從大型工程項目如堤壩、海堤和泵站尋找各種方法，以提供一個收容所幫助人們搬出洪水易發地區。But protecting a city of 8 million from the consequences of climate change is a monumental undertaking. In the end, there may be no iron-clad guarantees.
但是保護800萬人的城市遠離氣候變化的惡果是一個不朽的事業。最後，也可能沒有萬全的擔保。"You are not going to be able to build any infrastructure that is 100% safe from everything that nature may throw at it," DeGaetano said.
“你無法建立任何自然的一切都無法摧毀的100%安全的基礎設施，”DeGaetano說。"There is a trade-off to making something that works through a lifetime against some fortress that will withstand any type of devastation nature may throw at it. I am not sure anyone could have designed a system to withstand the type of surges that New York City saw."
“有一種平衡來使得一些東西一輩子有效，而不是承受任何類型破壞的一些自然可以摧毀的堡壘。我不確定有人可以設計出一個系統，能夠承受紐約市所遇見的各種波濤洶涌的類型。”
