Coastal perilNYC Building a Seawall to Protect City from Rising Seas

Published 25 September 2019

On Staten Island, the section of New York City which suffered most of Superstorm Sandy’s devastation, most of the homes destroyed by the storm still sit empty. City engineers have concluded that there was no point fixing and rehabilitating these homes until other measures are taken to protect the Staten Island from the next devastating storms. And climate change will only make these storms more frequent and more intense. These other measures are now underway.

Emerging from Superstorm Sandy, New York City has rebuilt housingreopened beaches, and prioritized crucial repairs to its subway and other infrastructure. On Staten Island, however – the section of the city which suffered most of the storm’s devastation — most of the homes destroyed by the storm still sit empty. City engineers have concluded that there was no point fixing and rehabilitating these homes until other measures are taken to protect the Staten Island from the next devastating storms.

And climate change will only make these storms more frequent and more intense.

These other measures are now underway.

Curbed reports that in line with other coastal cities, NYC is taking measures to cope with the consequences of global warming. In April 2019, NYC received the funding to build a 5-mile sea wall on Staten Island, a massive structure rising 20 feet above current sea level. The wall is not going to be an eye sore, though: architects have designed it to blend into the shoreline by doubling as a promenade.

The seawall will ,likely save NYC at least $30 million a year in addressing flood-related damages, and it could also save lives.

Climate change has caused storms to be more intense and more frequent, but analysts note that storm surges and coastal flooding are of special concern in the United States, as more people have moved to coastal urban developments, living closer to inexorably rising sea levels.

Curbednotes that as the planned Staten Island’s seawall shows, the measures cities take to protect themselves against the consequences of climate change can often be designed as dual-purpose infrastructure, creating amenities such as urban plazas, walking trails, parks, and sports fields. Many of the ideas being implemented on State Island have come from Rebuild by Design, a program developed after Sandy to come up with new ways to create dual-purpose infrastructure.

“A wall on its own isn’t enough to stop increasingly intense storms, but it can be part of a larger toolkit of interventions to protect homes and humans,” Curbed writes. “Additional lines of defense might include artificial barrier islands, networks of levees, and stormwater detention systems to help mitigate flooding.”

Increasingly, though, experts say that the only realistic option for many coastal communities is to consider a managed retreat from the coast (see “Governments Mull ‘Managed Retreat’ of Coastal Towns Before Rising Seas Claim Them,” HSNW, 23 August 2019; Peter Reuell, “Want to Avoid Climate-Related Disasters? Try Moving,” HSNW, 4 September 2019; Sarah Fecht, “Raising Tough Questions about Retreat from Rising Seas,” HSNW, 18 July 2019).