Living with Higher Water

What the world’s oldest cities can teach us about adapting to rising seas.

As sea level rise accelerates, securing the future of coastal cities requires us to think beyond our current strategies. Most adaptation plans focus on keeping high tides out with concrete and steel. But these plans often overlook the threat from below: rising coastal groundwater that can cause flooding even behind seawalls and levees.  

Living with Higher Water argues that, in order to meet the challenges of groundwater rise, we must turn to the long history of how humans have adapted in the past. Drawing on ancient Mesopotamia and Indigenous North America, alongside contemporary examples from Europe and Asia, Kristina Hill shows how landscape-based approaches such as dikes, ponds, and mounds can create more resilient cities while reducing costs and supporting biodiversity. Blending history, science, and design, she reminds us that the first civilizations lived with rising seas thousands of years ago—and now it’s our turn. Knowing more about those civilizations’ flexible strategies can help us prepare for the changes ahead.

Kristina Hill is Professor of Landscape Architecture, Environmental Planning, and Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley. She is coeditor of Ecology and Design: Frameworks for Learning.