A new study showed that after flooding in a Chinese subway station killed many Chinese residents, Boston was recently warned that it faces a “serious” flood threat due to rising sea levels.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tulane University have warned that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) rail network is threatened by flooding in the next 50 years.
“Severe flooding is a serious challenge for T,” said Michael Martello, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Transportation Laboratory and the lead author of the report. Boston Globe.
The study commissioned by MBTA points out: “Sea level rise (SLR) brings increasing flood risks to coastal cities and infrastructure.”
The authors of the study stated that they looked at estimates of sea level rise to predict which parts of the MBTA rail system will be affected by flooding. The authors say that they used “a reference coastal flood event from 1-100 years, and we show that as the projected SLR increases, the resilience of the rail transit network will decrease.”
“We proposed a general framework for the engineering resilience of infrastructure systems in the context of climate change and explained its application in assessing the impact of SLR on the Boston rapid rail transit network,” the study said.
“Within this framework, projected coastal flood events are considered exogenous exposure events, and they interact with physical and topological endogenous network features.”
according to Boston Globe, The study predicts that by 2030, a once-in-100-year storm will submerge the entire MBTA Blue Line and parts of the Red and Orange Lines. The study found that 40 years later, by 2070, a 100-year-long storm will flood most of the MBTA network, and the “system connectivity” between different lines will drop to only 9%. Earth Report.
The study also pointed out that if coastal storms become more severe in the future, MBTA will face a “survival” threat. Earth Report.
In response to this research, an MBTA spokesperson is sending Weekly newspaper: “Although this study is rich in content, it is not surprising given the sensitivity of Boston and its infrastructure to sea level rise (with the help of MBTA staff, the authors of the study placed MBTA infrastructure throughout the city of Boston). On the flood model).”
The statement said: “MBTA continues to pay special attention to the Blue Line that passes through Boston Harbor and East Boston… This is a community that is very vulnerable to flooding.”
“MBTA has taken a series of measures to make the Blue Line more resilient. Workers have upgraded their infrastructure to improve flood resistance and prevent water leakage and corrosion. T is working with external entities to solve the flood risk of the Blue Line through the landscape-level flood prevention Strategies and specific asset strategies that are closely related to the capital projects and upgrades of the Blue Line.”
The study was conducted shortly after the subway system in Henan Province, China faced severe flooding.according to ABC In the news, record-breaking rains caused flooding, killing at least 71 people, 14 of whom died at a subway station near the provincial capital Zhengzhou.
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