Trump Change

Many Trump properties all over the world are susceptible to Sea Level Rise.  Especially those in the islands of Hawaii.

According to the report “Probabilistic 21st and 22nd century sea-level projections
at a global network of tide-gauge sites” [Kopp et all] Hawaii will suffer catastrophic sea level rise over the next century. Trends in the last 5 years shows such a rise beginning to occur.

Kopp et has the following Sea Level Rise predictions for Hawaii:

2030 – 21 cm (0.7 ft)
2050 – 44 cm (1.4 ft)
2100 – 141 cm (4.6 ft)

What does this mean? Well for Trump Waikiki that means it has a few good decades left before it is completely submerged.

Trump Waikiki from Eli Sands on Vimeo.

So what though? No one is going to care for another 60 years at best. Well, look at our current infrastructure. The highways, pipes, and buildings that we are using now are that old, some are much older. This is the world we could be leaving to future generations if we don’t start designing our built world for this future.

Now I have the data and the next step if figuring by how much Trump properties will be effected by SLR. Fortunately Florida has done some work on this matter and created a report called The Unfed Sea Level Projection, Southeast Florida developed by the Sea level Rise Work Group, The reports author’s give local sea level rise projections for South Florida that specifically takes into account recommendations from NOAA and the USACE (US Army Corp of Engineers).

This Unified Sea Level Rise projection for Southeast Florida updated in 2015 projects the anticipated range of sea level rise for the region from 1992 to 2100 (Figure 1). The projection highlights three planning horizons:
1) short term, by 2030, sea level is projected to rise 6 to 10 inches above 1992 mean sea level,
2) medium term, by 2060, sea level is projected to rise 14 to 34 inches above 1992 mean sea level,
3) long term, by 2100, sea level is projected to rise 31 to 81 inches above 1992 mean sea level.

You can read the full report here.

In summary the report suggests using the high curve projection. I agree with this assessment because since 1992  Mean Sea Level (MSL) has risen 6″ based on measurable data from NOAA tidal gauges. It probably isn’t a bad idea to be on the safe side.

Zooming In….

Based on that data and the report I’ve created 5 animations that highlight the extensive damage that SLR will cause to Trump properties over time.

The aerial imagery is from ESRI basemaps

The sites with the most to lose are:

• Trump National Doral Golf Course
• Trump Hollywood
• Trump Sunny Isles Grande
• Trump Sunny Isles Tower
• Mar-A-Lago

Before showing the animations I want to include the following disclaimer I lifted from NOAA’s SLR viewer. My alterations are in red.

The data, animations, and maps in this tool illustrate the scale of potential flooding, not the exact location, and do not account for erosion, subsidence, or future construction. Water levels are shown as they would appear during the highest high tides (excludes wind driven tides). The data, animations , maps, and information provided should be used only as a screening-level tool for Trump. As with all remotely sensed data, all features should be verified with a site visit. The data and maps in this tool are provided “as is with some manipulations to create smoother rasters using the natural neighbor tool in ArcGIS,” without warranty to their performance, merchantable state, or fitness for any particular purpose. The entire risk associated with the results and performance of these data is assumed by the user. These animations should be used strictly as a planning reference tool and not for navigation, permitting, or other legal purposes.

In short, I am making broad assumptions on how much predicted flooding will happen during high tide, which from the looks of it, there is going to be a lot of incidental flooding everyday, but this is just a series educated predictions, based on empirical and probabilistic data research. The politics of the science only matter if you choose to ignore the data.

Trump Sunny Isles Towers from Eli Sands on Vimeo.

Trump Sunny Isles Grande from Eli Sands on Vimeo.

Trump Doral Sea Level Rise from Eli Sands on Vimeo.

Trump Hollywood from Eli Sands on Vimeo.

Trump Mar A Lagp from Eli Sands on Vimeo.

Next task is to look at New Jersey and Hawaii properties.  More to come.

Goal: To map Trump properties that susceptible to the effects of Sea Level Rise (SLR).

SLR is an observable phenomena with real implication to humans and wildlife, and beach front real estate. Several Trump properties are especially vulnerable to effects of SLR despite our President Elect’s denial of climate change science.

Buzzfeed did an article (by: Peter Aldhous) about this very topic a year ago to highlight this issue. Click Here to read that article. This article certainly got the jump on this idea but I think we can even go further and actually incorporate local SLR predictions produced by university and government research. Also high quality aerial imagery is always sexier to look at…even if they are Trump buildings.

Where’s The Data…

One thing that surprised me is that there isn’t any Trump based GIS files on the web. I saw a lot of maps through out the past year about Trump properties, but no one is sharing the data or research on these articles. So the first step was to create a worldwide shapefile of all the Trump Properties.  To do this I began parsing through the various properties at the Trump International Real Estate Site. This website has, from what I could find, the most complete list of known and visible Trump named or owned real estate locations.

*Note: While surfing the Trump International Real Estate site I noticed that the website has some very visible issues which is concerning because the owner of this website is now going to be in charge of our national cyber security.

Like the site for Trump Ocean Club just goes to a broken link with nothing to see, or the fact that nearly all the foreign real estate holdings have maps that direct you no where near the actual location of the indicated hotel.

Anyways, there was a lot of google earthing to figure it all out, but the results are a complete point shapefile for Trump Properties.  Follow the link at the end of the paragraph to download the shapefile.  The zip also includes a KML you can download and use in Google Earth, or an excel spreadsheet. Click here to download data.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A slideshow of the Trump Real Estate dataset at Global, US, and Florida extents. The Grey Basemap data is provided by ESRI.

 

Get It While the Getting’s Good.

The next part was easy.  I went to the NOAA SLR Viewer and downloaded  shoreline digital elevation models (DEMs) with built in SLR projections…

I think this is one thing that people don’t understand about the new administration and its ability to compromise our ability to remain informed citizens.

All of the excellent maps we see online about social and environmental issues requires data provided by the US Gov. This includes census data about poverty breakdowns, superfund sites, protected lands and waters, and a lot of aerial imagery such as the imagery created with advanced Landsat 8 satellites.

 

Much of the data about SLR is from NOAA. NOAA provides these SLR data and planning tools so states can start designing and preparing for the future with forward thinking.

As a landscape designer and soon to be architect, having access to good data about our shorelines will allow me to design for future landscapes and urban centers that can be built with the forethought to hopefully prevent or even improve the circumstances that will be the created by SLR, but if the data is denied or in some way altered, the planning and design community (the private sector and higher education professionals specifically) will be at a huge loss.

I am downloading as much data as I can right now before Jan 20.