is a project by Noah Gotlib documenting climate migration's impact on property and sovereignty in North America. atlasarchiveaboutemailinstagram
is a project by Noah Gotlib documenting climate migration's impact on property and sovereignty in North America.
Atlas of RetreatA growing collection of absent places.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa contains the largest contiguous site of flood-induced Managed Retreat in the Midwest. In 2008, the city was devastated by a flood inundated over 25 square kilometers and 7,000 properties.
Northwest Area of Cedar Rapids in 2024, with most residental streets and canopy stripped away.
In response, the city developed the Cedar Rapids River Corridor Redevelopment Plan, which involved acquiring 1,356 properties through floodplain buyouts funded grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and FEMA.
Impression of former streets, removed several years after houses in the area
Foundation slab of a removed home in the buyout zone
Devils Lake sits in a large closed basin in North Dakota with no outlet to any river or ocean, causing the lake to experience drastic fluctuations in size. With climate change bringing increased rainfall to the upper Midwest, Devils Lake has risen 13 meters, expanded 3,200% in volume, and 1,000% in area, submerging over 700km2 of land, nearly the size of New York City.
The Jeffersonian Grid is submerged by rising lake waters outside of Churchs Ferry, ND
The ongoing rise of the lake has resulted in infrastructure damage exceeding $1.5 billion, including the destruction of over 500 miles of road. The communities of Churchs Ferry, Penn, and Minnewaukan, once miles inland, are now mostly submerged and have been abandoned.
Timelapse of the growth of Devils Lake across the Jeffersonian Grid, with each square represening one square mile
With precipitation steadily increasing since the 1990’s, Devils Lake continues to grow. In response, an outlet was built to drain the lake into the Sheyenne River. While the lake could in theory be drained, doing so would cause downstream flooding in Fargo and Winnipeg, the governments of which have fought against any further modifications to the lake’s hydrology.
The street grid of Minnewaukan, ND sinks into Devils Lake
To control flooding, over $500 million has been spent on constructing dikes, levees, and other flood mitigation infrastructure, especially to protect the city of Devils Lake. However, these measures have often been overwhelmed by the continuous rise in water levels. Despite the lake’s limbo state, some residents of the area continue to pay a nominal property tax on lands up to four stories underwater in the hopes that the lake will one day shrink.
A gravestone for the de-incorporated town of Churchs Ferry, ND
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