It relinquishes the idea of control, of “holding the line,” in favor of accepting nature’s power and giving those protective ecosystems space to absorb wave energy and tides.
![drawing ocean waves drawing ocean waves](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/16/cc/5f/16cc5f8dc820db1400be4971d3ff1b22.jpg)
It’s called strategic or managed retreat because it’s planned, as opposed to crisis driven. But now scientists and government agencies are calling for a more deliberate, organized-and, in the long run, much cheaper-pullback. Elsewhere around the world, people are beginning to leave coasts, usually on the heels of disasters or when they can no longer afford routine flooding or salt intrusion that fouls drinking water, kills plants, and spreads sewage. For that homeowner in Rodanthe, water has dictated immediate retreat from the coastline. There is no longer any question that water is moving in and people must begin to move out. The range depends on whether humanity slashes carbon emissions by midcentury or, instead, continues to fail. By 2100, high tides will likely inundate land that’s home to between 190 and 630 million people worldwide. It was not the first house-this year! that day!-nor will it be the last. Then-in that viral video moment-the water gently pulled the house loose and set it to bob upon the sea. Rather, a low-pressure system coupled with a high tide drew ocean waves onto the shoreline, leaving heaps of sand on the prophetically named Ocean Drive. It was not the victim of a violent hurricane strike or storm surge. On May 10, a four-bedroom house perched on the beach of a North Carolina barrier island in the town of Rodanthe collapsed into the ocean. Projects work with local geology, life, climate, and cultures rather than trying to control them. The Slow Water movement has parallels to Slow Food, drawing attention to water’s relationships with rocks, microbes, beavers, humans, and how our actions affect them. What water wants is to reclaim its slow phases-wetlands, floodplains, mangrove forests-that we’ve erased with development. The following excerpt is from the book Water Always Wins, in which Hakai contributor Erica Gies follows innovators in what she calls the Slow Water movement who are instead asking a revolutionary question: What does water want? They are made much worse by our poor development choices aimed at controlling water. But these devastating water extremes are not just due to climate change.
![drawing ocean waves drawing ocean waves](https://static.vecteezy.com/system/resources/previews/000/427/884/original/sea-waves-circle-vector.jpg)
This adaptation originally appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.Īs climate-fueled floods and droughts wreak havoc around the world, a hard truth is emerging: sooner or later, water always wins. Adapted from Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge by Erica Gies, published in June 2022 by the University of Chicago Press.