Working Group Meeting - November 2, 2009

Sarah Newkirk, the Coastal Programs Director of the Nature Conservancy, was the guest speaker.  She discussed the challenges that climate change will pose on coastal communities in Long Island, and presented a new tool that will assist those local decision-makers in addressing those challenges.  Ms. Newkirk introduced the concept of adaptation, stressing through good planning and information, our society can adapt to the impacts of climate change.  Ms. Newkirk cautioned however, that even if our society did everything possible to mitigate future greenhouse gas emissions, the existing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will exact some impact on our environment, likely through elevated sea levels and increased flooding. 

 Ms. Newkirk stated that current projections from the IPCC 2007 report anticipate a 16 inch rise in sea levels by the end of this century, provided that greenhouse gas concentrations are quickly stabilized at current levels.  Even a 16 inch rise in sea levels presents a serious planning challenge for coastal communities. Ms. Newkirk stated that sea level rise is a threat that is difficult to compel public action due to the slow way it manifests itself and the lack of good information.  One reason is that adaptation as an issue has not been part of the climate change discussion.  In fact, the media has only recently been reporting about adaptation issues related to climate change since 2007.

 The Nature Conservancy launched the Coastal Resilience Project in order to tackle this gap in information and assist in the communication of the threat to local planners.  In creating the Coastal Resilience project, The Nature Conservancy determined that information was needed to cover three gaps in knowledge:  What is the magnitude of the threat; what is at risk; and what do we do about it.  The Nature Conservancy collaborated with the Goddard Institute and NOAA in order to obtain local projections of sea level rise and storm surge in various timeframes and scenarios, combined it with precise elevation data and presented it in a geo-spatial format.  The resulting map allows local planners to visualize various rising sea level and storm surge scenarios, overlaid with natural and human resources.  The Coastal Resilience project was dependent on high precision LIDAR for the generation of the maps, which limited the analysis to the southern shore of Long Island in Suffolk County. 

The mapping tool allows users to visualize a range of projections based upon three different sea level rise scenarios and three different storms for three different time periods; 2020, 2050, and 2080.  The tool also allows visitors to visualize which marshes and wetlands are at risk as well as visualize vulnerable infrastructure and community resources, such as hospitals.  Demographic data is also provided.  Economic losses from a storm event can also be determined from the tool. 

The Nature Conservancy uses an Eco-System based approach to adapt to climate change impacts.  Basically, an Eco-System based adaptation strategy uses natural systems, or what is referred to as “Green Infrastructure” as an overall strategy to protect human communities.  The Coastal Resilience projects looks at key eco-systems vulnerable to climate change, including Coral and Oyster reefs, mangroves, barrier islands, marshes, and wetlands.  These systems can serve to naturally mitigate storm damage, and protect human communities.  Additional shoreline development and the hardening of the coasts will make adapting to climate change more difficult, and thus government action to address the issue.

The Nature Conservancy also worked with the Pace Law Center to determine what kinds of adaptation responses apply in a particular community given the natural resources present and the infrastructure that needs protection.  They put together several categories of actions:

• Amending/Passing legislation.  Ms. Newkirk said that the cap-and-trade bills as proposed in congress would provide money for adaptation-related projects and would require states to put together adaptation plans.  Ms. Newkirk recommended that New Jersey needs to integrate sea-level rise principles into their Coastal Management Programs.  Ms. Newkirk also recommended that congress needs to amend the National Flood Insurance Program and amend the FEMA’s Hazard Management Mitigation Program
• Voluntary Land Acquisition of vulnerable property subject to regular inundation
• Post-storm Redevelopment – strategic purchasing of land after a storm event, and  
• Invest in habitat restoration in order to allow
 

Ms. Newkirk said the next step in the Coastal Resilience Project is to broaden the geographic area to include the north shore of Long Island and New England.  The Nature Conservancy is working on developing a pilot program with NOAA to integrate coastal overlay planning and zoning within select municipalities.

Ms. Gian-Claudia Sciara, graduate instructor for the Graduate Transportation Planning Studio at the Bloustein School for Planning and Public Policy, provided an update on the Rutgers Graduate Planning Studio course and their activities.  The class is charged with assisting the Climate Change Working Group and the NJTPA in exploring how climate change can be better integrated into NJTPA practices.  The class is focusing on five specific work tasks, and student teams have formed around each task.  Students presented their update on the following work tasks:

Greenhouse Gas Inventory for small airports:

• Greenhouse Gas emissions from the aviation sector accounts for a growing contribution to GHG output 
• Most regional and statewide GHG emission inventories focus only on large commercial airports
• The task’s goal will be to examine the region’s smaller airports, create an inventory methodology for the determination of their GHG emissions.
• Establish an allocation methodology that can be applied to the NJTPA regional GHG emissions inventory project.

Climate Change in the Project Prioritization Process:

• Climate change makes planning for future transportation projects more complicated due to the high risk and uncertainty of its effects
• The class team will identify measures that capture climate change risk, avoid interference with other NJTPA strategic priorities, incorporate the best practices of other MPOs, and incorporate principles behind federal climate change initiatives
• The goal of this task is to develop approaches to integrate climate change concerns into the project prioritization and selection criteria
• The class will review the existing project prioritization process and scoring methodologies
• The team will Report on climate change integration in prioritization at the federal and  MPO level
• The class team will propose several alternative scoring criteria that address climate change mitigation and adaptation factors in project evaluation.

Climate Change in Subregional Corridor Studies:

• This task goal is to develop an approach through which NJTPA could incorporate climate change concerns into the subregional corridor studies
• The class team will conduct an analysis of the River Road Corridor Circulation Study, and assess and evaluate the study’s transportation improvements for their greenhouse gas mitigation effects.
• The class team will also review how the subregional transportation studies are chosen, and evaluate how well climate change concerns are included in studies.
• The class team will also develop a methodology to incorporate climate change in the Sub regional Studies Selection Process

 MPO Best Practices:

• This task will survey MPO practices to determine the “best practices” that might be used by the NJTPA in its own operations. 
• The class team has identified four MPOs worthy of additional study
• Sacramento Area Council of Government (CA)
• Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (DC)
• Puget Sound Regional Council (WA)
• Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (NJ, PA)
• The class team will review these four MPOs for how well they integrate climate change into their practices in the following areas;
• Long range planning
• Integration of land use and transportation
• Technology
• Outreach/public participation
• Congestion reduction, control and management

Analyzing Regional Transportation Vulnerabilities:

• The goal of this task is to create a “To Do” guide on how the NJTPA can conduct a vulnerability analysis
• The class team will identify NJTPA members’ core climate change issues via interviews and questionnaires
• The class team will identify the data required to complete a vulnerability analysis and identify where data gaps currently exist.
• The team solicited feedback from the audience regarding the region’s transportation system, including;
• What transportation systems are most vulnerable? Least vulnerable?
• Does your operational budget include funds for projects addressing climate change issues?* Directly or indirectly
• What data is currently used to assess the vulnerability of your region? What data is needed?

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For More Information

Resources and documents relating to climate change are at right. For more information or to participate in the working group, contact Jeffrey Perlman at 973-639-8445 or jperlman@njtpa.org.

New Jersey Institute of Technology is the host agency of the NJTPA