Challenges Impacts of Development Climate Change
Strategies Land Conservation Buffers Low Impact Development Stormwater Utilities Land Use Regulations

Climate Change: Coastal Hazards & Municipal Infrastructure

Coastal areas are subjected to regularly occurring storms and hurricanes, which can cause damage from floods, winds, and erosion. These natural events stress municipal services and disrupt communities. Global climate change has added to these stressors by making storms larger and more powerful, resulting in larger volumes of runoff. The resilience of a community to handle these events requires the successful implementation of plans designed to address these emergent threats. One such plan is the use of low impact development (LID) designs to increase recharge and reduce flood volumes. The reduction of storm volumes through recharge could save municipalities significant costs associated with the need to update undersized infrastructure due to climate change. Adoption of LID practices can shift the cost of adoption from the municipalities to developers and owners of new- and re-development projects. The cost benefit of hazard mitigation from stormwater recharge may be significant for many communities.

Resources

• NOAA Sea Grant Coastal Natural Hazards: A nationwide network of 30 university-based programs that work with coastal communities: www.seagrant.noaa.gov/themesnpa/coastalnaturalhazards.html
• Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA): Provides guidance on climate change impacts in the northeast: http:// www.northeastclimateimpacts.org/
• CLIMB, 2004. Climate’s Long-term Impacts on Metro Boston (CLIMB) Final Report. Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Tufts University. 2004. EPA Grant No. R.827450-01
• Great Bay NERR Coastal Training Program, (603) 778-0015, ext. 305 or steve@greatbay.org