Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Managing exposure to flooding in New York City

Nature Climate Change volume 2, page 377 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

To the Editor —

These figures provide a rationale for a comprehensive adaptation strategy that focuses not only on the flood hazard, as outlined by Lin and colleagues1, but also on managing trends in exposure through fine-tuning flood insurance, building codes and zoning policies. The US National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) insures a value of about US$8 billion in NYC at present and is an important programme for achieving risk reduction6. For example, the NFIP requires that new structures should be elevated to the expected water level of a 100-yr flood. According to Lin and colleagues1, at least parts of the 500-yr zone may change into the 100-yr flood zone. However, the NFIP does not address climate change, and its regulations are restricted to the current 100-yr flood zone. For buildings in the 500-yr flood zone, minimum elevation requirements do not apply. We, therefore, propose that insurance and the city's building-code regulations should be applied to what is expected to be the future 100-yr flood zone, and a building-code policy should be formulated that requires 'freeboard' (building above the 100-yr flood level) of up to 2 or 3 ft for new structures in the 100-yr flood zone. It has been demonstrated that investing in (additional) freeboard can be cost-effective in terms of the reduced risk it delivers7. Moreover, zoning controls could be applied to limit potential flood damage, for example, by imposing building restrictions or by increasing the required 'open space ratio', which implies a lower building footprint and, hence, lower potential flood damage2.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Cumulative values of the properties at risk in the 100-yr, 500-yr and hurricane-3 flood zones from 1880 to 2010 (all in 2009 values, in US$ billion).

References

  1. Lin, N., Emanuel, K., Oppenheimer, M. & Vanmarcke, E. Nature Clim. Change 2, 462–467 10.1038/nclimate1389 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Aerts, J. C. J. H. & Botzen, W. J. W. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1227, 1–82 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. NYC-DCP New York City Population Projections by Age/Sex and Borough (2030 briefing booklet, New York City Department of City Planning, 2006).

  4. Rosenzweig, C., Solecki, W., Hammer, S. A. & Mehrotra, S. Nature 467, 909–911 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Nicholls, R. J. & Cazenave, A. Science 328, 1517–1520 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Michel-Kerjan, E. & Kunreuther, H. Science 333, 408–409 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Jones, C. P., Coulborne, W. L., Marshall, J. & Rogers, S. M. Evaluation of the National Flood Insurance Program's Building Standards (American Institutes for Research, 2006).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1087, Amsterdam, 1081 HV, The Netherlands

    Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts & W. J. Wouter Botzen

Authors
  1. Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. W. J. Wouter Botzen
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Aerts, J., Botzen, W. Managing exposure to flooding in New York City. Nature Clim Change 2, 377 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1487

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1487

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing