Case Study of Olympia City

Governmental Institution

• Civil Defense • Ministry of Health • Mayoralty • Trondheim Kommune • Department of Public Security • Police Department • Fire department • Regulatory Capacity • Delivery Capacity • Analytical Capacity • Coordination Capacity

Private Sector • Banks • Insurance companies • Consulting firms • Engineering companies • Pump stations

Case Study

• Financial Resources • Humanitarian aids • Knowledge in sea level rise projections and management

Sea Level Rise Response Plan of Olympia, USA

A high-density city prone to sea level rise flooding

Olympia is a city at Washington State of USA. The city is experiencing population growth and densification. By 2017, the city’s population is 51,609 with the density of 1094.63 people/km², which is relatively high-density if compared with countries. Olympia downtown is prone to flooding due to climate change and sea level rise. The city’s landscape along with complex coastal processes such as storm surge and local wave processes contributes to potential flooding.

‘Project Partners’ as the main actor

In response to the rising sea level and potential flooding, the City of Olympia (City), Port of Olympia (Port), and the LOTT Clean Water Alliance (LOTT) formed the ‘project partnership’ to work together for the Sea Level Rise Response Plan. The plan aims to prioritize strategies and investments for best responding to sea level rise, seeking to protect downtown’s economic, social and environmental values.

Area focus with approach of best, most likely and worst case

The plan focuses on four downtown areas, including Capitol Lake / Lower Deschutes Watershed, Percival Landing and Isthmus, Budd Inlet Treatment Plant and Combined Sewer System, and Port of Olympia Peninsula. Four scenarios are identified, which are 6, 12, 18 and 24 inches sea level rise, combined with king tide and storm tide, corresponding to local sea level rise projections. The plan thus adopts the phased approach of implementation with near-term (next 5 years), mid-term (5-30 years), and long-term (beyond 30 years) response actions, also corresponding to the time frame of scenarios and projections.

Four dimensions of response strategies based on assets and vulnerabilities analysis

The plan lists the inventory of assets and evaluates vulnerabilities in terms of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of assets. Assets are considered most vulnerable to sea level rise if they are exposed to flooding, are highly sensitive to damages from floodwaters and are not easily adaptable. Based on assessment the plan developed a suite of physical, operational, governance and informational strategies to address key vulnerabilities.

Physical strategies are to make physical modifications to the shoreline or assets to make them less vulnerable, e.g. raising or strengthening seawalls. Operational strategies are to address flood vulnerabilities through operations and maintenance in response to changing conditions, e.g. traffic detours and coordinated emergency response during flood events. Informational strategies are to address data and knowledge gaps in understanding flood vulnerabilities, e.g. conducting studies to better understand effects of elevated groundwater on the stormwater and sewer system. Governance strategies are to address flood vulnerabilities through policies, plans, coordination, guidelines, and regulations, e.g. developing agreements among the project partners and other stakeholders to collaborate on future sea level rise planning efforts.

The plan specifies a response strategy to develop a governance structure and organization, which includes oversight committee, technical group, finance group, and citizen advisory group. It provides inspiration about how good collaboration could be formed in absence of a disaster management authority.

Implementation, monitoring and action triggers

To implement response actions, the plan seeks to strengthen and extend the ‘project partnership’ to involve a wide range of stakeholders including governmental entities, NGOs and private property owners. The Project Partners will establish a monitoring program to track changing environments and updated climate studies to better prepare for challenges of sea level rise. The monitoring program will provide key information for local decision making in the decades ahead. Action triggers for implementation of physical and governance strategies will be refined annually as needed. The cost (dominantly physical strategies) before 2050 will be up to 28 million USD, but total budget covering long term actions will range from 190 to 350 million USD.