New York City’s coastlines are a mosaic of natural and human-made habitats intermixed with housing and industry, some of which are extremely vulnerable to flooding, storm surge, and damaging wave action. Risks are projected to increase over time as sea levels rise, population grows, and the frequency and severity of extreme events increase. A study co-funded by a NOAA Coastal Resilience Networks Grant and the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast, a CPO RISA (Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments) team, investigates the potential role of green infrastructure as a risk reduction measure, using Hurricane Sandy as a case study. Specifically, this research examines whether the type, size, and configuration of green infrastructure played a role in determining the odds of building damages. Results suggest that proximity to different green infrastructure types did affect the odds of damage, both positively and negatively, and that the impacts of both small-scale and large-scale natural features varied geographically. In addition, the study found that nature-based solutions to coastal flooding must be tailored to specific local conditions in order to be effective.
The article can be accessed here