A preliminary assessment of coastal GI’s role during Hurricane Sandy: a case study of three communities

ABSTRACT

New York City’s coastlines are a mosaic of natural and man-made habitats intermixed with housing and industry, all 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. This paper investigates the potential role of green infrastructure (GI) as a risk reduction measure, using Hurricane Sandy as a case study. Specifically, this research examines whether the type, size, and configuration of GI played a role in determining the odds of building damages. Results suggest that proximity to different GI 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. Results suggest that nature-based solutions to coastal flooding must be tailored to specific local conditions in order to be effective.

KEYWORDS:

• Green infrastructure
• resilience
• coastal protection
• Hurricane Sandy
• New York City
• climate change

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Ziwen Yu and Romano Foti, both of Drexel University, for their assistance with data management. This research was funded in part by the Trust for Public Land’s Climate-Smart Cities Program through support from NOAA’s Coastal Resilience Networks Grant and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s grant NA15OAR4310147 to the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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