Exposed towns, cities and even nations, such as The Netherlands, have slowly
 and quietly been building up storm surge defenses to protect themselves for
 decades, averting millions of dollars in damages as a result.

 This story originally appeared on ENR.com. The Thames Barrier protects London. Designed by Rendel, Palmer and Tritton, the barrier consists of nine concrete piers and gates stretching 1,700 feet across the river. The piers house hydraulic machinery that can raise 60-foot-tall gates in 30 minutes to block the surge tide coming up the Thames Estuary. When not in use, the gates rest in concrete sills flush

Research for the book On the Water: Palisade Bay by Guy Nordenson, Catherine Seavitt, and Adam Yarinsky inspired MoMA’s 2010 exhibition Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront The exhibition Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront, which ran at the Museum of Modern Art in New York two years ago, provided a look into the future—and this past week, that future arrived, in the form of the catastrophic storm surge from Hurricane Sandy. In the prescient show, MoMA addressed rising sea levels resulting from global climate change. The curators chose five teams, each comprised of architects, landscape architects, and