Investment Prioritiy 5:

Reinforce citywide climate resiliency

We will continue to invest in resilient infrastructure, facilities, and natural areas throughout the city. Improvements and new infrastructure projects will be viewed through the lens of how they mitigate flood risk for essential assets, improve coastal protection, and address heat vulnerability, in order to protect our current and future residents from the effects of climate change.

Moving toward resilient infrastructure

New York City is facing many challenges posed by climate change. Climate events like heat waves and flooding caused by sea level rise, heavy precipitation, and coastal storm surge are impacting New Yorkers now, and are anticipated to become more frequent and severe in the coming decades. To adapt to a changing climate our facilities, assets, and infrastructure must be made resilient. Resilient assets and infrastructure are built to withstand, or recovery quickly from, natural hazards like flood or heat events. They are also designed to continue functioning in the face of intensifying climate events over the course of their useful lives. As discussed in Investment Priority 1, the City’s Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines provide a set of standards for ensuring that our buildings and infrastructure are resilient to extreme weather and climate change.

Improving coastal resiliency

Wide swaths of New York City’s waterfront are at risk of chronic flooding caused by sea level rise and coastal storms. Projected sea level rise will lead to the increased elevation of high tides, causing daily tidal flooding and even permanent inundation in low-lying parts of the city. Similarly, rising sea levels are anticipated to exacerbate storm surge flooding during coastal storms in the coming decades. Therefore, protecting our coastline from climate hazards, like sea level rise and storm surge, is critical to keeping floodwaters away from neighborhoods and essential City assets. Our projects protect communities at risk today, as well as those that may be at risk well into the future.

The City is also working with the US Army Corps of Engineers to construct an integrated levee and seawall system to protect the South Shore of Staten Island, from Oakwood Beach to Fort Wadsworth, from storm surge. The flood protection will be buried under naturalized dunes and an accessible boardwalk providing public access and recreation along the beach.

Mitigating flood risk for essential city assets

Flood risk is caused not only by sea level rise and coastal storm flooding, but also heavy precipitation that can lead to inland stormwater flooding. The City is focused on mitigating all types of flood risk to essential infrastructure to ensure continuity of services for New Yorkers during and following storm events to promote health, safety, and quality of life. Adapting and protecting our infrastructure also ensures that it is more resilient in the long term, reducing future losses and maintenance needs.

Approximately 400,000 New Yorkers and 72,000 buildings are in parts of the city with a 1% chance of flooding caused by a coastal storm in a given year. By the 2050s, the number of New Yorkers living in the 1% annual chance floodplain could double. Because of this, it is essential that we begin strengthening our infrastructure now to minimize damage to our neighborhoods.

We are investing in the reinforcement of critical at-risk assets like streets, and hospitals. For example, in 2015 the City produced the Raise Shorelines Citywide Study to address vulnerability of New York City’s shoreline to long-term sea level rise. This led to the Raise Shorelines Program and projects such as the $11.5 million Travis Avenue road raising in Staten Island. Improvements will ensure that the 900-foot length of Travis Avenue, which experiences frequent flooding, will be raised approximately three feet and be protected from routine flooding due to sea level rise until at least 2050. As this stretch of Travis Avenue crosses wetlands areas, the project includes environmental considerations such as two wildlife eco-passages to facilitate safe crossings for terrapins, turtles, and other wildlife.

Addressing heat vulnerability

As the City highlighted in its 2017 Cool Neighborhoods NYC report, more Americans die each year from heat waves than any other extreme weather event. New Yorkers remain more vulnerable to extreme heat than people in surrounding non-urban areas, due in part to the physical makeup of our city — impervious surfaces like pavement and sparse vegetation contribute to trapped heat and higher temperatures. Some New Yorkers are at greater risk from heat waves. Seniors and those with certain health conditions are more vulnerable to heat stress. Low-income residents are both more likely to live in areas that trap heat and are less likely to have access to air conditioning. We address these compounded physical and social vulnerabilities through our capital programs by providing airconditioned places to gather throughout the city and improving the physical environment of our city to be more resilient to heat.

City buildings with cooling infrastructure and gathering spaces, such as libraries and community centers, provide respite for those who may not have air conditioning (AC) in their homes. Eighty-five percent of NYC heat-stroke deaths occur in homes without working AC, and approximately 9% of homes citywide do not have functioning AC. The prevalence of AC is even lower (approximately 20%) in communities that are the most heat vulnerable due to both environmental and social characteristics, including green space, surface temperature, and poverty rates. To ensure COVID-19 safety precautions, the City retooled it’s heat planning strategy to include a network of 143 cooling centers with enhanced safety precautions, 30+ Open Streets and 12 Cool Streets in heat-vulnerable neighborhoods, and 250 additional cooling features in parks. DPR developed the Cool It! NYC program and interactive map that highlights all of the City’s cooling features in the public realm.

City agencies are also focused on increasing greenery and enhancing the reflectivity and porosity of impervious surfaces to mitigate the urban heat island effect. DEP’s robust green infrastructure program helps to combat extreme heat by installing rain gardens, infiltration basins, and porous pavements throughout the City’s streets and sidewalks. These interventions help to absorb rainwater and reduce flooding, while also increasing tree canopy and vegetation that mitigate surface temperatures. DPR has also expanded the number of street trees and park trees in high heat vulnerable neighborhoods. SBS’s CoolRoofs program has installed white roofs across the city, which helps to lower indoor temperatures and reduces a building’s energy load.