Flooding is the most expensive and common natural disaster in the United States, and its impacts are only expected to accelerate due to increasingly frequent and intense storms and sea-level rise. The Urban Resilience program’s work on flood preparedness includes original research, convenings, and technical assistance projects addressing flood risk and resilience at site, community, city, and regional scales.
Parks That Protect: Leveraging Waterfronts for Resilient Communities highlights leading-edge waterfront park projects that are designed to protect their neighborhoods from climate threats while improving residents’ health and quality of life. In communities around the globe, waterfront parks are ground zero in the fight against climate change—and a key part of building resilient, healthy, and equitable cities for the future.
New York, NY: Cloudburst Infrastructure Workshop for New York City Housing Authority presents the solutions unearthed during a workshop with ULI’s Urban Resilience program and ULI New York in collaboration with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) that developers, owners, and cities can use to boost a landscape’s ability to handle extreme rain and cloudbursts, by slowing down the flow of water, storing water in floodable areas, or restoring natural ecosystems.
Harvesting the Value of Water explores the real estate sector’s increased participation in stormwater management through the incorporation of green infrastructure. The report details how cities in the United States are dramatically revising their stormwater management regulations and requiring participation from the private sector.
On Safer Ground: Floodplain Buyouts and Community Resilience highlights how local governments across the United States are increasingly turning to buyouts as one strategy to cost effectively reduce flood risk, offer relief to residents, and potentially improve access to open space in urban areas.
The Business Case for Resilience in Southeast Florida summarizes the findings of an economic analysis that assessed the regional impact of resilience investment. The results present a compelling business case for both the public and private sectors to invest in proactive flood protection and climate adaptation strategies now, including both community-wide and building-scale measures.
ULI is proud to be a part of NOAA’s Digital Coast Partnership to support member and industry access to critically important coastal data, tools, and expertise. The Digital Coast provides online tools that can be used to inform real estate development and land use policy making, project design, and resilience planning efforts in U.S. coastal markets.
The Coastal Forum provides an opportunity for ULI members to convene and share best practices and emerging market trends in coastal real estate development and community resilience, with regular gatherings at ULI Fall and Spring Meetings.
ULI South Carolina and the Urban Resilience program hosted Living on the Edge, a five–part web-based series designed to help ULI South Carolina members develop a deep understanding of current best practices for assessing and mitigating climate risk in real estate and land use along the South Carolina coast.
Led by ULI Tampa Bay in partnership with the Urban Resilience program, Realizing Resilience: Social Equity and Economic Opportunity, St. Petersburg, Florida summarizes the Realizing Resilience workshop. The workshop offered the city of St. Petersburg strategies to enhance flood preparedness and community resilience, and explored means to withstand future shocks and thrive in the face of environmental, social, and economic pressures.
Following a major rain event in Lafayette that caused extensive damage and flooding, the city invited ULI to conduct a Resilience Advisory Services Panel to advise on strategies to enhance resilience and encourage catalytic mixed-use and residential development in the city’s urban core. Downtown Lafayette, Louisiana: Strategies for Resilient Land Use, Development, and Implementation identifies financial tools and policies to implement more resilient land use and water management strategies.
The City of Miami Beach invited ULI to provide an independent assessment of its climate adaptation efforts, including a multi-year stormwater management plan, infrastructure investments and land use policy changes. Miami Beach Stormwater Management and Climate Adaptation Review proposes strategies to build on the work in place through green and blue infrastructure, modelling, physical design, regulation, finance, creative placemaking, and communications.