Adapting to Climate Change: The Implementation of Sponge Cities on the US East Coast.

Keywords: Sponge City, Urban Development, Urban Planning, Green Infrastructure, Extreme Climate Change
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

Throughout the world climate change has become more intense, and has impacted many in several ways. As time goes by, a main concern is how are we preparing for these issues. When looking at recent hurricanes such as Helene and Milton, the flooding and the destruction that followed these intense hurricanes leaves one pondering on how the destruction could have been delayed or prevented.

Sponge cities have become a phenomenon because they help alleviate the problems associated with extreme weathers. In China sponge cities have been implemented and have helped absorb water from floods. Taking into consideration their success in other places, we have considered if there are any places in the US that could benefit from these sponge cities and green infrastructure.

We've decided to focus on the east coast to see which areas could benefit from sponge cities. We decided to focus on insurance rates to map regions where prices have increased, indicating a region of “high risk”. We are also looking at historically redlined maps to see if there are certain neighborhoods or areas that experience disproportionate lack of care and attention. Combining these insurance rates and historically redlined maps we will analyze if there is correlation with these factors and areas that need sponge city infrastructure. Satellite Imagery will also be incorporated to see how places have changed over time where no type of sponge city infrastructure is used. These will be compared to satellite images of places where green infrastructure and sponge cities are used.