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York 2015: Anatomy of a Flood Disaster

York has known devastating flooding many times before and if ever there was a city used to its ravages, its residents have felt it. Time and again, the city’s defences have been improved and adjusted, as new lessons have been learned – but Christmas 2015 raised the bar once again. Over the course of a few days, York suffered its worst flooding in a generation.

Main Image:  The Ouse on December 29. Picture: Steve Carroll

Storm Eva unleashed a wave of unprecedented rainfall across the north. Coming just three weeks after  Storm Desmond , it exacerbated the ongoing situation , with saturated river catchments responding swiftly to the new deluge.

York Flood Group – made up of the City of York Council, the Environment Agency, North Yorkshire Police, North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue and Yorkshire Water – met on December 27 to discuss the worsening situation. The group usually meets only when the River Ouse levels reach, or are expected to reach, 4.2 meters above normal summer level (asl).

On Monday 28 December, the Ouse peaked at 5.2 metres above its normal summer level, just short of the all-time high of 5.4 metres, recorded in autumn 2000. However, city-wide flooding occurred due to the devastating failure of the Foss Barrier.

It was opened on Saturday 26 December after the pumping station was flooded, leading to floodwaters from the Ouse flowing back into the Foss. The primary concern was the pumps failing due to water ingress to the electrical supply.

The Environment Agency said that if the Foss Barrier were not lifted, it could have jammed in the closed position, causing even worse flooding for 1,800 properties, as water would not have been able to discharge into the River Ouse.

A s a result of the decision, huge areas were flooded for the first time in many people’s lifetimes.   Foss Islands Road was closed, Foss Bank and the river were indistinguishable, and several cars parked off Layerthorpe were almost completely submerged.

About 500 homes alongside the Ouse, the Foss, Tang Hall Beck and Osbaldwick Beck were inundated. James Street travellers’ site was also severely hit, with many distraught residents saying they had lost everything.

In total in York, 250 people were evacuated from their homes. Around 10,000 sandbags were used, with 600 military personnel, 125 mountain rescue members, York Rescue Boat teams and countless volunteers helping to rescue flood victims or to fill and distribute sandbags around the flooded areas.

By December 29, the Foss barrier was operational again. The army flew in emergency equipment the day before and repairs were carried out overnight, but by then it was too late for many.

Householders were left counting the cost and  many business owners in the city-centre said they were given no warning the barrier was being lifted.

At its height, the flooding caused major knock-on problems. 

Floodwaters swamped the basement of the BT telephone exchange, damaging electrical equipment and cutting landline and wi-fi broadband services for thousands of York customers.

People across the city lost phone and internet connections, and many mobile networks failed or struggled, with some people unable to make or receive calls. 

Many buildings in the city-centre had no internet or phone connections and most shops, pubs and cafes were able to take cash payments only, as card machines were down.

Picture courtesy of Alfio Fresta

The Jorvik Viking Centre flooded for the first time in its 31-year history, and faced a closure of up to a year .   The cells at York Magistrates Court also flooded, meaning many cases had to be moved to other courts.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue’s High Volume Pump from Harrogate was used at the Melrosegate Electrical Sub Station to keep it going, preventing 55,000 customers from losing power.

In the end, around 650 homes and businesses had been directly affected by flooding in the city centre. The cleanup cost the council half a million pounds, excluding damage to council assets including properties and infrastructure. It persuaded the government to pay £17m for Foss Barrier improvements and £45m for wider flood risk management improvement works across the city.

The original Foss pumping station was designed to pump about 30 tonnes of water per second from the Foss into the Ouse and was clearly unable to deal with the demand that Christmas.

The upgrade, which will include the installation of eight more powerful replacement pumps, is set to increase its capacity so it can handle at least 40 tonnes per second – securing its performance for the foreseeable future – or until climate change raises the bar again.

Future Climate Info provides a comprehensive flood risk assessment for residential properties through its suite of Environmental Risk Report s . These account for river, sea, coastal and surface water flood extents for a full, clear and effective view on any potential risks ahead of a property transaction.

Based on the assessment, Specialist flood risk services can look at flood resilience measures and a review of flood zoning with climate change allowances can give an accurate appraisal of the likelihood of flooding into the future.

For more information, contact us on 01732 755180 or email [email protected]

york flooding case study

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Internet Geography

UK Floods Case Study November 2019

york flooding case study

The UK experienced an extreme weather event in November 2019 when exceptionally heavy rainfall caused flooding in parts of the UK. Heavy downpours across large parts of northern England led to surface water and river flooding in parts of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Greater Manchester, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.

According to the Met Office, on Thursday 7th November 2019 over half of the average rainfall for the whole of November fell in parts of the Midlands and Yorkshire.

If you have images and/or videos of flooding or an eye witness account that you would be happy to share on an interactive flood impact map we are developing please send them [email protected]

What caused flooding in the UK in November 2019?

A large area of prolonged rainfall fell on parts of the UK in November 2019. Some areas experienced the whole of Novembers average rainfall over a period of 24 hours. Sheffield experienced 84mm of rainfall. The rainfall was caused by an area low pressure stalling over the UK.

Further reading/watching: 

BBC Weather Overview 

What were the effects the extreme weather in November 2019?

About 500 homes have been flooded in Doncaster with more than 1,000 properties evacuated in areas hit by the floods.

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said it had declared a major incident on the evening of Friday 8th November and firefighters rescued more than 40 people from the Fishlake area, near Doncaster. Residents of Fishlake said it was the first time the village had flooded in 100 years.

Empty coffins were seen floating inside the workshop of a flooded funeral parlour in the village.

Some villagers had to spend the night at a nearby pub, where staff said they had seen people crying because of the devastation.

The village church is collecting food to distribute to residents and roast dinners were delivered on Sunday to those who had remained in their homes.

Reseidents have complained that the River Don has not been dredged recently.

According to the BBC, Adrian Gill, a flood manager at the Environment Agency, said did not currently dredge the River Don “because we don’t think that’s the right thing to do” but the situation could be reviewed in the future.

Water sports enthusiast and teacher Mark Ibbotson, from Doncaster, said he, along with his 13-year-old son Logan, had rescued more than 30 people – including two babies – from a number of streets using his inflatable boat in Bentley where homes have been hit by flooding.

One of the most severely hit areas has been Bentley in Doncaster, where flooding affected many homes 12 years ago.

One resident told BBC Radio Sheffield: “The worry is our insurance policies are expensive as it is because of the 2007 floods, so now we’re all worried whether we’re going to get reinsured.”

Extensive flooding affected Rotherham , where residents were told to stay at home and not leave unless asked to do so by emergency services. Some have been taken to safety by boats.

Dozens of people were forced to spend the night in the Meadowhall shopping centre .

In Derbyshire, the River Derwent at Chatsworth reached its highest recorded level and council workers put up sandbags around Matlock and Matlock Bath, where the river was “dangerously high” .

A number of properties in Derby city centre were flooded, however, a full evacuation was not ordered as the River Derwent didn’t burst its banks to the extent emergency services believed it would.

The A52 – the main road route into Derby – was closed westbound between the city and the M1 along with a handful of smaller roads in the county.

Residents from 12 homes in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, were unable to return home after a mudslide on Thursday led to 35 properties being evacuated .

In Nottinghamshire, residents living in mobile homes close to the River Trent in Newark were urged to move to higher ground.

On Friday, the floods claimed the life of a woman who was swept into the River Derwent at Rowsley in Derbyshire. Her body was found about two miles away in Darley Dale. She was named earlier as Derbyshire’s former High Sherriff Annie Hall .

Trains were cancelled in Yorkshire and parts of the East Midlands as rail routes were flooded.

BBC reporter Richard Cadey said some roads around Fishlake had been closed and the village was “effectively cut off because of flooding”. He said people on the ground had told him 90% of the homes there had been flooded.

The River Don, which flows through Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster, hit its highest recorded level at just over 6.3m (21ft), higher than it was in 2007 when it also flooded.

Sources: 

England flooding: River warnings and rail delays continue

Flooding in pictures/videos

Torrential downpours flood parts of northern England – BBC

Flooding in Yorkshire – In Pictures – The Guardian

England flooding: A tour of a flooded house in Fishlake

River Derwent Flooding – Drone Video

Helicopter captures footage of flooded South Yorkshire

What were the responses to the UK floods in November 2019?

More than 100 flood warnings were put in place across England. The Environment Agency (EA) urged people to take them seriously.

york flooding case study

The Environment Agency took to social media to warn people about the potential impacts of flooding.

AMBER warning for flood risk today ⚠️- rain will rotate over north and north midlands bringing heavy rain on already sodden ground – take care – flood warning updates here https://t.co/K5GUW3z87V pic.twitter.com/mDDAC3uLXc — John Curtin (@johncurtinEA) November 7, 2019

The Environment Agency worked day and night to reduce the impact of flooding. The Environment Agency responded to the flood risk by working closely with police, fire and rescue, local authorities and partners to reduce the risk of flooding and keep communities safe. On the ground, Environment Agency field teams worked through the night to operate flood storage areas and pump away flood water.

A major incident was declared in South Yorkshire,

Some residents were “angry and frustrated” at Doncaster Council – claiming it had not provided sandbags early enough to prevent properties from flooding, the station reported.

Political leaders visited areas affected by floods. On the campaign trail Boris Johnson promised over £2 billion to improve flood defences.

South Yorkshire Police said it had extra officers out on patrol to “protect the evacuated areas and support those affected by the floods”.

Following a meeting of COBRA, the government’s emergency committee, Prime Minister Boris Johnson anounced the following measures :

  • An extra 100 Army personnel deployed from Wednesday to support the recovery effort in South Yorkshire
  • Funding for local councils where households and businesses have been affected – equivalent to £500 per eligible household
  • Up to £2,500 for small and medium-sized businesses which have suffered severe impacts not covered by insurance

Six days after the heavy rain, army personnel provided support to flood-hit communities .

Environment Agency warnings

Environment Agency working day and night to reduce flood impact

How effective were the mitigation strategies introduced since the 2007 floods?

Flood defences put in place in South Yorkshire managed to significantly reduce the impact of Thursday’s floods, the Environment Agency (EA) has said.

River levels in parts of the county rose overnight to almost the same as they were in June 2007, when two people died in Millhouses and the Wicker.

Despite a major incident being declared on Thursday, the EA said the area was protected by new walls and flood gates.

The river levels around Meadowhall were high, but the EA said its defences, as well as the ones put in by Meadowhall, had lessened the damage.

Elsewhere in South Yorkshire, £3m was spent by the EA to repair and improve defences running along Ea Beck , in the villages of Toll Bar and Bentley near Doncaster.

However, people living in settlements downstream of Sheffield have complained about the impact of the recently constructed defences.  In Bentley, a low-lying neighbourhood on the north side of the River Don, forlorn terraced streets are still knee-deep in water. “You don’t have to be a hydrologist to see what’s happened,” said one man interviewed by a Guardian journalist . “Sheffield built flood defences in 2015-16. They spent about £20m protecting the lower Don. So the water has nowhere to go than the next place, Rotherham and then Doncaster.” He went on to say that residents received a “red alert” on Thursday night that there was a risk of flooding. He phoned an emergency number and requested sandbags. He was told that the council was not going to distribute them because the River Don’s banks had not been breached.

When the sandbags eventually arrived the community worked together to distribute them.

South Yorkshire flooding: Defences ‘reduce impact’

Related articles:

How do you stop flooding? 

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River Ouse in flood at the King's Staith area in York

After the floods, York’s residents try to piece their lives back together

Receding waters are just the beginning of the struggle for those affected by this winter’s devastating weather. We talk to some of the city’s residents and uncover feelings of anger and despair … and hope

I t’s been just over a month since York experienced its worst flooding for decades, bringing Christmas to an abrupt end for many. Heavy rainfall on Boxing Day, combined with a controversial decision by the Environment Agency to raise one of York’s major flood barriers , left almost 600 homes and businesses submerged in filthy river water contaminated with sewage for 48 hours.

With little warning, hundreds of residents had to be evacuated from their homes in the middle of the night by Mountain Rescue teams as the water levels rose rapidly. Many were only able to take the clothes they were wearing with them.

Of course, York was just one of a number of areas of the country left beleaguered in what was the wettest month on record , with the cost of the floods likely to run into billions of pounds .

Days later, when the city’s residents and business owners returned to their properties, they found them dark and dank, their contents sodden and covered in a thick layer of mud and silt – amounting to thousands of pounds worth of damage to each of them.

For the fortunate ones who had insurance, the clean-up and drying process started almost immediately. For others – those who did not have contents insurance – they have had to simply write off furniture, equipment and possessions that they were unable to save. In some extreme cases, such as that of Joanne Leas, who was refused buildings insurance due to living in a flood-risk area, residents have become homeless.

Our house is basically rotting from the inside

Amy Ellis, 31, her engineer husband Peter, 33, and their three children have lived yards from the river Ouse in a three-bed Victorian mid-terrace house for five years. Their house was badly damaged in the autumn floods in 2012 and as a result they could no longer afford their contents insurance premiums. So when, in the early hours of 28 December, they were evacuated by a Mountain Rescue team they knew they were going to lose their possessions all over again. Up until last week, when a cleaning company began to decontaminate their basement, their house stood cold, damp and empty.

They’ve no mains electricity and have yet to have any heaters or dehumidifiers put in to start the long drying process. The family are living in nearby rented accommodation, furnished with donations from a community furniture store as they have no money to replace the items they have lost.

Amy says: The river comes up into the park opposite us quite often. It had been fairly high for about a week, so Boxing Day was just like any other day. I went to bed as normal and was woken at 4.30am by the Mountain Rescue team. They said we needed to evacuate because the Foss Barrier was going to be opened and there was going to be a surge. We got the children out of their beds, put their coats on and handed them over to Mountain Rescue, who took them to the end of the street.

Amy Ellis outside her house

We hadn’t time to move any of our stuff upstairs, so we left everything – we just wanted to get everybody out. The water came up to about just over a metre high in the house, and stayed there for about 48 hours before receding. We got back into the house on 30 December. My husband and dad had to wear waders like dungarees just to get to the house as the river was up to their waists, although it wasn’t in our house any more. It was almost unbelievable to see what the water had done. The floors and walls had an inch or two of mud and sewage on them. It was damp, cold and it smelt. Everything was ruined – it wasn’t like our house any more. Everything we’d worked for had been totalled. We’d only just got it back to how we wanted it after the last flood.

We don’t have contents insurance. It was much too expensive because our house is in a flood-risk area. We do have buildings insurance and have had a builder out– his estimate of the work to be done is £26,000, so we are hoping our insurance will cover that cost.

No one’s been in to clean or do anything – they couldn’t because there’s no power, so it’s basically rotting from the inside. I just want to wash my hands of it, but I can’t because it’s my house. I feel like I’ve been let down. We feel like we’re on our own. The river’s back in its bank, York looks quite normal, even other people along our street are back in their homes, whereas for us it’s going to be about 12 months.

We are now homeless and living in a caravan

Single mother Joanne Leas, 40, has been a resident of York’s designated traveller community site on James Street for 21 years. She has lived there in her own two-bed chalet, which she bought 13 years ago for £25,000, with her eight children since it first opened. She, like many who live on or near flood plains, was unable to take out buildings or contents insurance, so when the floods came they destroyed her home and left her and her children homeless.

Leas and five of her youngest children are now living with her 21-year-old eldest daughter, who is married, in her caravan. It only has two bunk beds and a kitchen. Her other two children are living separately with family members. Her home, which was beset with more than 6ft of contaminated water, is one of 10 on the site that have been condemned, and will be demolished by the council. York Travellers Trust is trying to raise £100,000 to replace the homes. To donate go to gofundme.com/mrgvruuk .

Joanne says: By 3pm the water was already about 4ft high. We had no phone calls or warnings or anything; we had no chance of rescuing anything. We didn’t think for one minute we were going to get absolutely wiped out. The water was unbelievable – it was coming in so fast. We got no help whatsoever.

We panicked – I grabbed my children. I had to get them off site. Everybody was stood looking, watching our homes be destroyed. I was heartbroken. Nobody from the council came down; nobody from the Environment Agency came down. We were just left there as a little community, stood on our own in the darkness thinking ‘What the hell are we going to do?’

We came back the next morning and the water was up past my window sills. Everything you have in a house, that’s what we lost. David Cameron came down for a visit – he was about 200 yards from the site and didn’t even come and have a look at the devastation.

They say we can hopefully get back on site in March or April, but when we do go back to James Street we haven’t got any homes. I’m worried about whether I’m ever going to get a home for these children again. We’re living day to day. It’s scary not knowing what the outcome is going to be. At the end of the day we are human – we’re no different from anybody else.

I don’t know when we’ll get back in – we’re in limbo

Wendy Hudson, 56, manager of York’s only independent furniture store, Hambleton Furniture, stood shaking and in tears when she saw the devastating impact the floods had on the shop. About £50,000 of solid oak furniture was found damp and strewn all around. The carpets stank of sewage. And the windows were so filthy she couldn’t see through them for residue silt.

A week later she was overjoyed when an out-of-town waste management company sent a crusher and a team to help clear the shop of contaminated stock for free. A month on the shop is a shell. The plaster has been stripped from the walls, but the driers have yet to arrive. Hudson is still trading, taking orders over the phone, and hopes to be back in the building by the end of March.

Wendy Hudson – Hambleton Furniture

Wendy says: It was a struggle to get the door open – furniture had fallen over. It stank. You couldn’t see through the windows with the damp and condensation, the furniture had tide lines, and the drawers were full of silt. It took ages to get the carpet up as we had to move all the furniture. We had to cut it into strips, it was horrible.

My husband got talking to a man from a waste management company who said he was giving out skips in the Dewsbury and Leeds area. He said we could do with one of those. Two days later we had a call saying ‘We’re outside your shop’. They had a great big bin van, like a crusher, and loads of lads. They literally cleared the stock. It took them a day. We knew we had to destroy the furniture because you can’t do anything else with it. A month on it’s a shell. The ceiling lights are working but that’s about it. The problem is the dehumidifiers haven’t come yet, and the whole shop has got to be disinfected.

I honestly don’t know when we’ll get back in – we’re in limbo. We’re losing a lot of trade because this is normally our busiest time. Our insurance will only cover us for three months, then we need to be back in.

We thought that we had contents cover – we didn’t

Actor and poet Stuart Freestone, 30, and his wife Hannah Wallace, 29 and a theatre director, have been renting their two-bed mid-Victorian terrace from his aunt and uncle for more than two years. As far as anyone was aware, the property, near the river Foss, hadn’t flooded before. So when Stuart received a call from Floodline at 6pm on 26 December saying it was a possibility, he and Hannah spent the evening moving their possessions upstairs as a precautionary measure. At 10.30pm that evening, they went to stay at a friend’s house, still not convinced their home would flood. When Stuart returned the next day he had to wade through waist-level water just to get to his street.

Stuart Freestone – poet

One month on they are still staying with their friend. The drying out has started but it will be up to six months before they can go back home.

Stuart says: The water was halfway up my shin throughout the ground floor. It was brown sewage water, which was a nightmare and probably the most devastating part of it. It’s so invasive, it felt like we’d been burgled.

The smell wasn’t the first thing that struck me – it was freezing cold. Luckily we had managed to put everything of value, or sentimental value, upstairs, but we hadn’t been able to move couches or our dining room table. It’s hard to put a value on what we lost – everything downstairs had to be skipped.

When the water receded I spent two days gutting the downstairs with a team of people from the community. It smelt quite badly in there – more than I expected. Going upstairs and seeing the carpets, bedding and clothing damp and smelly was a bit of a shock. That was one of the hardest things – we thought our stuff was safe upstairs, and it was from water damage, but not from the moisture and the smell that came with it.

We were under the impression that we had contents insurance with our bank, but it turns out we actually didn’t. In hindsight we are so thankful that we managed to move everything upstairs so it didn’t affect us as badly as it could have done. Although we felt gutted when we found out we weren’t covered, and there are things we weren’t insured for, it could have been a lot worse.

Our flood risk assessment said we would be fine

Bar and cafe owners Sarah Lakin, 51, and brother Mike, 44, consider themselves lucky, despite not having adequate contents insurance and losing £7,000 of fixtures, equipment and stock. Compared with their neighbours, many of which are still closed, they have able to reopen their bar, The Fossgate Social, just three days after the floods struck. A month on, they say trade is picking up and they want people to know that York is very much open for business.

Sarah says: We’ve got a Victorian building with a brick cellar where we keep all our stock. On Boxing Day morning we noticed the water was coming in and making a puddle. We started to panic and carried everything we could upstairs. We shut by lunchtime.

When we came in the next morning the water was up to the roof in the cellar. Everything in it had completely gone. But we were very lucky – it didn’t actually flood the cafe. We’re on the Foss not the Ouse, which floods all the time. The Foss is usually very benign – it’s almost like a canal – so to see it flood was gobsmacking.

Mike Lakin and his sister Sarah

Before we bought the building we had a flood risk assessment done as part of our planning application to convert it into a cafe and bar, and the report said we were fine. So we thought we wouldn’t worry about flood insurance. We lost all of our equipment: the CCTV system, remote line cooler, refrigeration unit, electrics/lighting. It was worth around £6,000-£7,000.

We’ve been very lucky. The council immediately set up a flood fund. We applied and have just received the money – we spent it on a refrigeration unit. That’s a wonderful response. I’m going to be able to get the cellar up and running because of that money.

For the first few days of opening, our takings were down 50% on last year’s. It was worrying that every time you saw York on television they would choose to show really desperate images of the city. We rent rooms to holidaymakers, but people were cancelling because they thought it was too dangerous to come.

The BBC One Show filmed on our street; the producer spent the afternoon in our bar. When the programme went out, all they showed was closed businesses decimated by flooding. They didn’t mention that a lot of people had reopened, and they finished their report off with ‘And more flooding on the way’. Which gave us the kiss of death.

It’s a sensitive issue – I don’t want to go on about how I’m open when my neighbours are still shut, but my neighbours, like us, are traders and they want to come back to a viable, vibrant street, not a dead one.

I worry about whether we will get insurance again

Secondary school teacher Alison Taylor, 46, lives with her partner Peter Hope, 67, a retired illustrator, in a two-bed Victorian terrace, and has more questions than answers. She wants to know why they weren’t warned about the lifting of the Foss Barrier sooner, why there wasn’t a plan in place to protect houses along that river, and why were they put in that position in the first place.

Her house flooded on 27 December, and she and Hope were evacuated by Mountain Rescue the following day, leaving their home in 5ft of contaminated water. A month later they are living upstairs in the only habitable room, with the constant noise of the driers on downstairs and the uncertainty of not knowing when life will return to normal.

Alison says: I feel a bit lost – it’s hard to get in contact with the insurance company. We’re waiting for the restoration people to get back to us to tell us how the drying process is going. We are ready to do the repairs but can’t until the insurance company, Churchill, approves the plans.

We’ve lost about £6,000 in terms of our possessions, plus a further £4,000 or £5,000 in damage, and that’s before you look at the inconvenience of having to live upstairs and the distress of it all.

We are very worried about whether we’ll get insurance again, and what the premium or excess will be if we do. I’ve read from estate agents that there may be an initial property price dip. Things may recover quickly but we are on unknown ground there.

There are reports the Foss Barrier wasn’t fit for purpose, wasn’t properly maintained. As a result I don’t feel secure in my home any more, and that’s very unnerving.

New move on insurance

Around 16,000 homes and businesses were flooded in England during December, the wettest ever month on record. And, to add insult to injury, some are now likely to be told their insurer has decided not to renew their policy.

However, there is a sliver of good news on the way for some of these people, and others living in flood-risk areas. From April there will be more insurers able to offer them flood insurance, as firms will be able to use the Flood Re scheme .

Flood Re, so-called because it is a “flood re-insurance” scheme, is an industry-wide initiative aimed at the estimated 350,000 UK households at serious risk of flooding and who struggle to access affordable cover.

Insurers will be able to pass on the flood risk element of eligible home insurance policies to Flood Re, which will charge the insurers a premium for each policy based on the property’s council tax band. “There should be a greater choice of home insurance policies for customers at risk of flooding, and those policies should be more affordable,” says Flood Re, which is a publicly accountable body with statutory objectives and powers.

To be eligible your home must have been built before 1 January 2009 and be used for residential purposes, be insured by the individual homeowner (not a company) and have a council tax band. Properties excluded from the scheme include bed and breakfasts paying business rates, blocks of residential flats and farm outbuildings.

  • Home insurance
  • Consumer affairs
  • Natural disasters and extreme weather

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york flooding case study

  • Environment
  • River maintenance, flooding and coastal erosion

York 5 year flood plan

Sets out the options for how the Environment Agency will spend £45 million across York city centre over the next five years.

york flooding case study

York: our 5-year flood plan

Ref: LIT 10519

PDF , 1.44 MB , 13 pages

This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

This document was published in November 2016. The York 5 year flood plan is continuously being developed. For more up-to-date information please click here .

After the floods in December 2015, the government committed £45 million to reduce the risk of flooding and increase the level of protection to at least 2,000 homes in York’s city centre over the next five years.

Since the announcement of the additional funding, we have assessed what changes could be made to the existing flood defences within the city and what new defences could be built. The results of this have been summarised within this plan.

We will use this plan to guide our work in the city over the next 5 years. The options we are presenting in this plan are based on our ambition to achieve a consistent standard of flood protection across the city.

This plan outlines the work across 10 York communities over the next 5 years. It looks at a range of potential flood reduction measures including:

  • creating storage areas
  • increasing pumping capacity
  • raising and building new walls
  • raising land
  • building embankments

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  • Drivers of adaptive behavior
  • a. Study area
  • b. Survey and sampling methods and sample statistics
  • c. Design of discrete choice experiments
  • d. Adaptive behavior models
  • a. Previous and intended adaptations
  • b. Values and bias
  • c. External stressors
  • 4. Conclusions

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Values, Bias, and Stressors Affect Intentions to Adapt to Coastal Flood Risk: A Case Study from New York City

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Sea level rise amplifies flooding from tides and storms for coastal communities around the globe. Although the characterization of these physical hazards has improved, it is people’s behavior that will ultimately determine the impact on communities. This study adds to our understanding of how people may respond to various adaptation options and policies, using a household survey in New York City, New York, neighborhoods affected by Hurricane Sandy. We investigate previously overlooked factors that may influence intended household adaptive behavior, such as single-action bias, a cognitive trade-off that households make between adaptation options, whereby taking a small (and often less effective measure) may strongly discourage uptake of a more protective measure. Through a novel application of discrete choice experiments in the coastal adaptation context, we simulate plausible future conditions to assess potential adaptation under climatic and nonclimatic stressors. Our findings suggest that single-action bias plays a substantial role in intended coastal adaptation, whereby the odds of homeowners who have already implemented a modest-cost measure to insure and relocate in the future are 66% and 80% lower, respectively. The odds of homeowners to relocate are also ~1.9, ~2.2, and ~3.1 times as great if their peers relocate, nuisance flooding becomes a frequent occurrence, and property values fall substantially, respectively. We find that renters’ motivation to relocate is largely driven more by external issues such as crime, gentrification, and economic security than by flood hazard.

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Supplemental information related to this paper is available at the Journals Online website: https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-18-0082.s1 .

a Current affiliation: Climate Central, Princeton, New Jersey.

© 2019 American Meteorological Society. For information regarding reuse of this content and general copyright information, consult the AMS Copyright Policy ( www.ametsoc.org/PUBSReuseLicenses ).

1. Introduction

Forty percent of the world’s population resides along ocean coastlines, and ~10% live on land that is within 10 m above sea level ( McGranahan et al. 2007 ). Meanwhile, urban exposure to flooding is increasing as a result of population growth and sea level rise (SLR) resulting from anthropogenic climate change. Recent research on the rate and magnitude of SLR ( Kopp et al. 2014 ; Sweet et al. 2017 ), the change in distribution of tropical cyclones ( Lin et al. 2012 ; Walsh et al. 2016 ), and the resulting frequency and severity of flooding ( Buchanan et al. 2016 , 2017 ) has helped cities and other governmental entities to assess their changing coastal hazards (e.g., Douglas et al. 2016 ; Griggs et al. 2017 ). However, as the ability of settlements to cope or thrive under changing climate conditions may also depend on the precautions taken by households (e.g., Adger et al. 2009 ; Seneviratne et al. 2012 ), understanding individuals’ adaptive behavior to changing coastal hazards is critical to help decision-makers effectively plan for a sustainable future.

There remains great uncertainty regarding the extent to which households will adapt to changing coastal hazards (e.g., Koerth et al. 2013a , b ). First, households face a range of adaptation options (e.g., Neumann et al. 2011 ; Koerth et al. 2013a ). For instance, households may take small, “low-hanging fruit” measures, such as stockpiling resources for an emergency or procuring sandbags. They may also take more costly measures to accommodate flooding, such as buying flood insurance, elevating their homes, or permanently relocating, curbing their exposure and vulnerability to flood hazards. Because low-hanging fruit measures are arguably less protective than these costlier larger-scale measures, they are not adequate substitutes.

An individual’s perception of and response to risk are multifaceted and generally governed by feelings, deliberation, and politics, influenced by the broader public policy context (e.g., Slovic et al. 2004 ; Breakwell 2014 ). A complex array of factors can influence a household’s adaptation decision-making process, such as previous experience with flooding and knowledge of how flood frequency and severity may change in the future, as well as socioeconomic, cognitive, situational and geographical variables (e.g., Baker 2011 ; Koerth et al. 2017 ). Although qualitative research has provided important insights into the context and role of these factors (e.g., Graham et al. 2014 ), there are limited empirical studies on the influence of households’ values and biases on coastal adaptation. These personal factors have been shown to dominate individuals’ perspectives and adaptation decision-making processes in other sectors ( Adger et al. 2009 ; Weber 1997 ). For example, single-action bias, which characterizes the cognitive trade-off that households make between adaptation options, whereby taking a small (and often less effective measure) may strongly discourage uptake of a more protective measure, has been shown to drive adaptation decisions in agriculture and energy consumption but has not yet been tested in the coastal adaptation context ( Weber 2006 ). Situational or external factors have rarely been tested in the coastal adaptation context, despite their propensity to influence decision-making ( Koerth et al. 2017 ). Potentially important external factors include the adaptive behavior of others ( Lo 2013 ), the price of insurance ( Botzen et al. 2013 ), the perception of the flood hazards ( Botzen et al. 2015 ), the presence of public flood protection ( Poussin et al. 2014 ), and the change in property value ( Bunten and Kahn 2014 ).

As flood hazard from SLR is emerging and increasing over time in many areas, few observations of household adaptive behavior currently exist. We couple a household survey, examining how values and single-action bias affect intended adaptive behavior, with discrete choice experiments (DCEs) to account for climatic and nonclimatic external factors. DCEs are a rigorous statistical method used across the social sciences to isolate the systematic components of an individual’s utility for a particular choice under hypothetical scenarios, and are subject to less bias than contingent valuation methods for stated preferences ( Hoyos 2010 ). Whereas Botzen et al. (2013) used DCEs to elicit individuals’ willingness to pay for flood insurance, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of DCEs to examine households’ intentions to take one of several different adaptation measures (flood insurance, home elevation, and permanent relocation), under a wide range of external stressors.

We focus on neighborhoods in the Jamaica Bay (hereinafter referred to as the “Bay”) region in New York City (NYC), New York. NYC has been leading development in resilience policy (e.g., NYC 2013 , 2017 ) in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which invoked global attention on climate change adaptation, particularly in coastal areas ( Tollefson 2012 ). While several studies focused on communities’ vulnerability to the event (e.g., in terms of preparedness and impacts to mental health, infrastructure, and property; Boscarino et al. 2014 ; Comes and Van de Walle 2014 ; Huang and Xiao 2015 ; Ramasubramanian et al. 2016 ), few assessed how individuals may change their adaptive behavior ( Binder et al. 2015 ; Wong-Parodi et al. 2017 ). The area’s socioeconomic diversity, intensifying flood hazards, and candidacy for public flood protection led by city, state, and federal governments ( USACE 2016 ) make for a timely case study that may produce lessons for other coastal settlements developing flood risk management policies and programs.

Several factors have influenced households’ responses to environmental change and coastal hazards specifically, including socioeconomic characteristics and cognitive and situational dynamics (e.g., as reviewed in Koerth et al. 2017 ). Socioeconomic characteristics, such as age, education, gender, or marital status can affect an individual’s priorities, perspectives, and risk tolerance ( Cutter and Emrich 2006 ). In some cases, age, marital status, education and homeownership have significantly influenced intended adaptive behavior, while adaptive capacity in the form of income has had a more ambiguous effect ( Molua 2009 ; Baker 2011 ; Linnekamp et al. 2011 ). Cognitive factors, such as the perception and concern of flood hazards, and previous experience of extreme events affect an individual’s assessment of risk and motivations to behave proactively (e.g., Bubeck et al. 2012 ). For example, Bichard and Kazmierczak (2012) found that perception of climate change and increasing flood hazards significantly influenced the intended adaptive behavior of households. Moreover, risk perception is partly driven by emotion ( Loewenstein et al. 2001 ; Weber 2004 ; Slovic et al. 2004 ), which has downstream consequences. Single-action bias, for example, is a psychological effect in which people do not take additional protective action after already haven taken an action (that may not be particularly protective) because taking the first action reduces their concern ( Weber 2004 , 2006 ). This emotional response can skew risk perception and result in subpar risk mitigation. Here, we examine single-action bias in the coastal adaptation context and hypothesize that households that have already taken a small adaptation measure such as procuring resources for an emergency are less inclined to take a larger-scale measure such as buying flood insurance, elevating a home, or permanently relocating [hypothesis H1; see Table S-1 in the online supplemental material (hereinafter SI)].

Moreover, Adger et al. (2009) highlight the influence of personal values in limiting adaptive behavior. For example, in the coastal context, an individual’s attachment to a community—in addition to emotional and financial investments made to one’s home—may be more compelling than fears about financial loss or physical damage. If a household strongly desires to stay close to the coast to preserve their cultural identity or lifestyle, they may be more likely to take in situ adaptive measures. Alternatively, a household may be opposed on principle to pay for flooding-related costs or intolerant of the inconveniences that can arise as an area prepares for, or reacts to, flooding (such as construction or time away from home, which are often by-products of large-scale private or public adaptation efforts). We hypothesize that households that highly value the coast, their community, or home are more inclined to insure or elevate their home and less inclined to relocate (H2), and that those who highly value avoiding flooding-related costs and inconveniences are less inclined to insure or elevate and more inclined to relocate (H3). As intuitive expectations are often wrong, we test and examine the relative influence of these factors.

Situational, external stressors also have the potential to limit or spur adaptive behavior, but are rarely investigated ( Koerth et al. 2017 ). Households have varying tolerance of hazard frequency and severity ( Dow et al. 2013 ) and sensitivity to the price of flood insurance ( Kriesel and Landry 2004 ). They may relocate or abstain from coverage if rates increase above their willingness to pay. People may also be more inclined to take an action depending on its uptake by peers (e.g., Cialdini and Goldstein 2004 ). People may act less cautiously under the presence of publicly funded, community-scale, flood-mitigating infrastructure ( Cutter and Emrich 2006 ; Loucks et al. 2008 ), which may assuage fears of damage from future flood events (regardless of the integrity of the structure or its ability to protect against a range of flood levels). For example, Botzen et al. (2009) found that households that assumed the presence of public flood protection were less likely to invest in resilience measures. Additionally, residents may behave differently under a particular public protection strategy [e.g., a storm surge barrier vs natural and nature-based features (NNBF), such as marshes and living shorelines], depending on their perceptions of its effectiveness or effect on coastal amenities (such as aesthetics, navigation, or ecology; Adger et al. 2009 ). Finally, change in property value or in the cost of rent may drive or prevent relocation ( Murdoch et al. 1993 ; Bin and Polasky 2004 ; Bunten and Kahn 2014 ). Here, we hypothesize that households are more likely to adapt as nuisance flooding becomes more frequent (H4), and if their peers adapt (H5). We posit that households are more likely to relocate if their property values fall or costs of rent rise (H6). Last, we expect that households are less likely to adapt under large-scale governmental efforts to reduce flood risk (H7), and are less likely to insure under conditions of rising premiums (H8).

The Bay region, spanning seven political community boards within NYC, is culturally and socioeconomically diverse and to some extent segregated. The Rockaway Peninsula, for example, spans a gradient of wealth, from low in the east (e.g., Far Rockaway) and increasingly high toward the west (e.g., Belle Harbor and Breezy Point; U.S. Census Bureau 2015 ; SI Fig. S-1 and Table S-2 ). While some communities are over 95% white (such as Belle Harbor, Breezy Point, and Broad Channel), others just a few miles away are 50%–90% African American and 15%–30% Hispanic (including Canarsie, Rockaway Park, and Far Rockaway; Ramasubramanian et al. 2016 ). Like in many urban areas, gentrification is a growing concern ( Higgins 2016 ). Approximately one-half of households are renters ( U.S. Census Bureau 2015 ). Although flood insurance is formally required for federally backed mortgages and nearly 90% of structures in the area qualify for subsidized premiums, flood insurance uptake is modest ( Dixon et al. 2013 ). Subsidized premiums are becoming increasingly expensive, and average annual premiums have risen from $1800 to $3300 since Hurricane Sandy ( Dixon et al. 2013 ). Neighborhoods surrounding the Bay region face some of the highest flood risk in NYC. Substantial damage occurred throughout the area from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, including 10 fatalities and the destruction of over 1000 structures ( USACE 2016 ). The damage from Sandy and the increasing potential for future flood damage has incited NYC, New York State, and Federal agencies to invest in public flood protection. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and agency partners may build a storm surge barrier across the Bay inlet to help mitigate flooding ( USACE 2016 ). Alternatively, sea walls or a portfolio of NNBF could span the bay’s perimeter to help accommodate floodwater ( USACE 2016 ). While a storm surge barrier may offer more protection against extreme flooding, NNBF may better mitigate less extreme flooding (e.g., Nordenson et al. 2014 ; de Castella 2014 ; Bridges et al. 2015 ; USACE 2015 ).

Predictors were qualitatively validated from community meetings (number n = 14) and by in-depth interviews with community leaders ( n = 15) and residents ( n = 5). In 2016, a semistructured survey instrument ( n = 462) collected data on personal factors and intended adaptive behavior under plausible future conditions using DCEs among renters and homeowners (SI Table S-3 ). The survey measured perceptions of current and future risk, past experiences with flooding, and recent adaptation measures taken. Values were measured on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from not important to extremely important . For homeowners, these included the value of living close to current community members and the coast, keeping one’s property (for personal or financial reasons), and avoiding flooding-related costs and inconveniences (like construction or time away from home). For renters, the value of avoiding inconveniences and keeping one’s property were replaced by the value of the affordability and quality of their residences.

To be eligible, respondents were asked if they were at least 18 years of age and could represent their household. Recruits were randomly offered a nominal fee (<$5) to participate in an approximately 20-min survey. Nine Bay neighborhoods were randomly selected (SI Fig. S-1 ), and the survey was executed by three mechanisms to increase the generalizability of the findings. First, the survey was conducted in person using clustered random sampling, whereby cross-streets were randomly selected from each neighborhood and every third home was approached ( n = 97), with a response rate of 42%. This sampling method was used because of the natural geographical clusters within the population (exemplified by the demographic stratification in SI Table S-2 ). Second, the survey was mailed to residences in each neighborhood using stratified random sampling by zip code to identify recipients ( n = 173), with a response rate of 16%. Households were randomly selected from targeted residential mailing lists from “ ExpressCopy.com .” For the online component, a representative sample of 199 respondents was recruited through Qualtrics, a third-party panel provider. The subsample was recruited by the panel provider to resemble the census demographics of the zip codes in the case-study area. As a quality control, surveys from participants who took less than 7 min or did not complete the survey (13.7%) were discarded. The t tests of independence showed no significant differences in independent variables among the in-person, mailed, and online surveys (see SI Tables S-5–S-26 ).

The sample was diverse in income, marital status, age, gender, and ethnicity. However, the sample was also biased toward the characteristics of homeowners in the case-study area, who tend to be an older, wealthier, and more educated population ( Ramasubramanian et al. 2016 ). On average, respondents were 50 years old [median: 50; standard deviation (sd): 16.3; range: 20–85] and had lived in their neighborhood for 26 years (median: 23; sd: 18.4; range: 0.2–80). Thirty-six percent of respondents had a mortgage, and the average annual household income was $89,000 (median: $87,000; sd: $52.300; range: $7,000–$200,000). Fewer than 1% had not completed high school, 26% were high school graduates, 28% had attended some college, 32% were college graduates, and 13% obtained a masters’, doctorate, or professional degree. The average homeowner experienced at least minor property damage from Hurricane Sandy (mean of 21.6% and sd of 22.9% of structure damaged). Surveyed variables and descriptive statistics of the sample are listed in SI Table S-3 .

We expected to receive lower response rates from individuals with less education and income—which is not uncommon for the social sciences and coastal adaptation research (e.g., Kohut et al. 2012 ; Roser-Renouf et al. 2014 ; Akerlof et al. 2016 ; Treuer et al. 2018 )—for several reasons. First, wealthier homeowners likely received more resilience outreach attention from organizations and government agencies and have more disposable income to pursue adaptation efforts. Second, as confirmed by local community leaders, survey fatigue further explains our lower response rates among lower-income households, who were the focus of several post-Sandy vulnerability studies resulting from the large amount of attention that NYC and the Bay received after Hurricane Sandy (e.g., Tollefson 2012 ; Gruebner et al. 2015 ; Ramasubramanian et al. 2016 ). Third, renters and residents in poorer neighborhoods were likely less responsive because of limited availability and trust. Consequently, our results are biased toward upper middle-income homeowners, and more research is required to generalize findings. Our survey framework could be adapted to support other adaptive behavior studies.

All personal variables had fewer than 5% of missing values (except for Income and Married , both with 5.8%). Observations with missing values were removed, reducing the original sample size ( n = 462) to 405 (262 homeowners and 131 renters). No variables were correlated except the independent variables Insured and No adaptation (Pearson’s correlation coefficient r = −0.79; significance level p < 0.001), as well as current Flood perception and Expected floods (Pearson’s r = 0.31; p < 0.001). These correlations are to be expected because insurance is currently the most widely adopted adaptation (because of its requirement for federally backed mortgages) and individuals who perceive current flood hazard are more likely to perceive future flood hazard.

Attributes included levels of flood hazard (nuisance, major, or extreme flooding), insurance premiums (low, medium, or high), peers’ adaptive behavior (whether the majority of community members do nothing, elevate their homes, or permanently relocate), changes in property value (remains unchanged, increases, or decreases), and public flood protection (storm surge barrier, NNBF, or sea walls; Table 1 ). Flood hazards vary in frequency and severity, whereby nuisance flooding is defined as the potential for streets to flood several times a month and extreme flooding is on par with that resulting from Hurricane Sandy. It was noted that public flood protection could help reduce flood risk (but may not mitigate it entirely). Insurance premiums were represented by $40, $120, and $800 per month for homeowners covering their structures and contents and by $30, $45, and $60 per month for renters covering their contents, reflecting the wide range of premiums and projected rate increases in the area ( Dixon et al. 2013 ). Peers represent whoever the respondents identified as community members, whereby the majority of respondents identified people living in their official neighborhood as peers. Because it is uncertain how property values and rents respond to flood hazards ( Murdoch et al. 1993 ; Bin and Polasky 2004 ; Bunten and Kahn 2014 ), we included a wide range of possible change (±50%). Public flood protection strategies mirrored those being proposed for the area ( USACE 2016 ; see section 2a ).

Attributes of external stressors in DCEs.

Table 1.

DCE questions were designed based on orthogonal main-effect arrays, whereby scenarios covered the parameter space of factor attributes ( Johnson et al. 2006 ). To reduce the computational burden on respondents, we distributed factors into two separate DCEs. The first included attributes for flood hazard, insurance premium, and peers’ adaptive behavior [Eq. (4) ]. The second included attributes for flood hazard, property value, and public flood protection [Eq. (5) ]. In total, each DCE included nine scenario questions, blocked into groups of three, randomly assigned to respondents. Scenarios spanned a 20-yr timeframe, a balance between residential timelines and those for large-scale infrastructure projects (which typically take decades to materialize). Under each scenario, respondents were asked how they would likely react: 1) buy insurance, 2) elevate their home (with or without insurance), 3) permanently relocate from their neighborhood, or 4) take none of these actions. Homeowners who had previously elevated their homes were not allowed to select home elevation. Figure 1 illustrates a sample question from each DCE.

Fig. 1.

Citation: Weather, Climate, and Society 11, 4; 10.1175/WCAS-D-18-0082.1

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1) External stressors

When using DCEs, one must associate the outcome data of the experiments with a statistical model. Following the methodology of Aizaki (2012) , we structured conditional logistic regression models to measure the extent to which attribute X k influences households to choose between an adaptation measure i versus the alternative of taking no action. We undertook six models for the two DCEs to measure homeowners’ intentions to relocate as opposed to taking no action (models 1b and 2b), to insure as opposed to taking no action (models 3b and 4b), and to elevate as opposed to taking no action (models 5b and 6b; Table 3 , described in more detail below). Similarly, models 7b and 8b relate to renters’ intentions to relocate as opposed to taking no action and models 9b and 10b relate to renters’ intentions to insure as opposed to taking no action (SI Table S-4 ). For each model, this resulted in 1866 observations for homeowners (311 people × 3 scenario questions × 2 choices: the given adaptation measure vs the reference case of taking no action) and 906 for renters (with 151 people).

2) Personal factors

To examine the influence of personal factors on these intended adaptive behaviors, we created three independent binary variables ( Insure, Elevate , and Relocate ) reflecting whether or not a respondent considered taking a particular adaptation measure at least once across all DCE scenarios. We then undertook five binary logistic regression models ( Table 2 ) to measure homeowners’ intentions to relocate as opposed to taking no action (model 1a), to insure as opposed to taking no action (model 2a), and to elevate as opposed to taking no action (model 3a). Similarly, we modeled renters’ intentions to relocate as opposed to taking no action (model 4a), and to insure as opposed to taking no action (model 5a).

Influence of personal factors on intended adaptive behavior among homeowners and renters (models 1a–5a). Odds ratios are shown; p values and standard errors correspond to regression coefficients. Boldface type indicates statistical significance: one asterisk indicates p < 0.05; two asterisks indicate p < 0.01; three asterisks indicate p < 0.001.

Table 2.

To analyze single-action bias, respondents were asked to list any flood protection measures taken. These measures were categorized into small measures (e.g., stocking up on resources for an emergency) and large, more protective measures (i.e., insurance or home elevation). A binary variable ( Low-hanging fruit adaptation ) was created, equaling 1 if small measures were taken and 0 otherwise. Identification of the theoretical relationships and empirical interactions between personal factors (analyzed in models 1–5a) and external stressors (analyzed through the DCE in models 1–10b) will be considered in future research.

3. Results and discussion

About 50% of households (owners and renters) have not taken any previous actions to prepare for flooding. Nine percent have taken a low-hanging fruit measure including emergency preparations (e.g., stocking up on water, flashlights, and batteries), lifestyle adjustments to reduce exposure (e.g., moving upstairs or downsizing), protective efforts (e.g., waterproofing walls or procuring sandbags), or accommodations (e.g., investing in French drains or repaving gutters). While 37% of residents currently or recently had flood insurance, fewer (20%) owned backup generators, and only 7% had elevated or were in the process of elevating their homes. Fourteen percent of respondents considered relocating immediately after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 but decided to stay for their home (51%), neighborhood (39%), and/or community (33%). Looking forward, we found that the majority of residents intend to insure (62% of homeowners and 64% of renters), elevate (41% of homeowners), and/or relocate (66% percent of homeowners and 83% of renters) across future scenarios, and that only a fraction (6% of homeowners and 5% of renters) did not intend to take any of these actions. Households’ interest in relocation is striking considering the political sensitivity of “retreat” (e.g., NYC 2013 ) and the lack of city, state, and federal preparation for large-scale climate-induced migration.

Binary logistic regressions were used to investigate the influence of values and single-action bias on the intention to take an adaptation measure against the alternative of taking no action, expressed using the odds ratio (OR; see section 2d , Table 2 , and the explanation in the SI). Models of values and bias better explain homeowners’ and renters’ intentions to relocate than to insure. Looking at the effects of personal value predictors, we found that homeowners who value avoiding flooding-related costs (whether for damage prevention or recovery) are more likely to relocate (OR = 1.44; p < 0.01; Table 2 , model 1a). Conversely, homeowners who value their current community are less likely to relocate (OR = 0.69; p < 0.05). Renters who value avoiding flooding-related costs (in their case, insurance payments or damage to contents) are less likely to buy insurance (OR = 0.62; p < 0.05), perhaps in part because they already assume coverage from their landlords. These results are to be expected; the predictiveness of these characteristics and their reported values show that respondents gave careful and consistent answers. Renters who spend more hours per week with community members on average (e.g., at civic meetings or for school, athletic, cultural, or religious activities) are more likely to purchase insurance (OR = 1.22; p < 0.05), suggesting that exposure to community members may increase the chance for renters to learn about their responsibility for self-coverage and/or how to navigate the flood insurance bureaucracy.

We found multiple lines of evidence that suggest that renters have more pressing concerns than flooding that may influence their relocation. During in-person interviews, renters expressed that they are most concerned with nonflooding issues such as crime, gentrification, and economic hardship, which make living in the area less desirable. Empirically, we found that renters are significantly more likely to relocate because of issues other than flood risk (OR = 0.02; p < 0.001). Although renters perceive flood risks, they may have a false sense of protection from insurance, attenuating their concern about flooding. For example, many respondents assumed that they have insurance coverage through their landlords. Despite having statistically similar perceptions of flood risk [mean(Renters) = 0.61; mean(Homeowners) = 0.66; t = 1.11; p = 0.27], renters are less concerned about flooding than homeowners are [mean(Renters) = 0.60; mean(Homeowners) = 0.72; t = 2.66; p = 0.008]. In some sense renters should be less concerned, because they do not have the same high-value immobile assets that can be damaged or destroyed by floods as homeowners. Those in apartment buildings noted that they feel physically removed from the risk, understandably perceiving less risk if their belongings cannot be damaged. This serves as more evidence that respondents were paying attention and that the data are consistent as a result.

Single-action bias, whereby taking a small action is enough to assuage anxiety ( Weber 2006 ), is a systematic deterrent of larger-scale (and often more effective) adaptation measures. As illustrated in models 1a and 2a, the odds of homeowners who have already taken a low-hanging fruit adaptation measure (such as stocking up on resources for an emergency) to relocate and insure are 80% (OR = 0.20; p < 0.01) and 66% (OR = 0.34; p < 0.05) lower, respectively. Our findings suggest that single-action bias is also affecting renters, who perceive they are insured through their landlords or that their apartment buildings mitigate their exposure.

Adaptation by peers helps to normalize adaptive behavior and signals that flood risk is high, whereby the odds of homeowners elevating their homes are 80% greater if their peers do (OR = 1.79; p < 0.01) ( Table 3 ). The odds of homeowners relocating are 92% greater if their peers relocate (OR = 1.92; p < 0.001) and 57% greater if their peers elevate their homes (OR = 1.57; p < 0.05). This may suggest that even those who cannot elevate their homes (which is often financially or structurally impractical) imitate their peers’ adaptation by relocating—the remaining high-stakes alternative under worsening flood conditions.

Influence of external factors on adaptive behaviors for homeowners. Odds ratios are shown; p values and standard errors correspond to regression coefficients. Boldface type indicates statistical significance: one asterisk indicates p < 0.05; two asterisks indicate p < 0.01; three asterisks indicate p < 0.001.

Table 3.

Illustrated in model 2b, high insurance premiums increase the odds of relocation by a factor of 4 (OR = 4.60; p < 0.001). Not surprisingly, the price of insurance also significantly influences homeowners’ decision to buy insurance in the future. The odds of homeowners buying insurance are 40% (OR = 0.60; p < 0.01) lower if premiums rise modestly (e.g., $120 per month) and 84% (OR = 0.16; p < 0.001) lower if premiums rise more drastically (e.g., $800 per month). Insurance prices do not appear to affect the uptake of home elevation, probably because people who would be interested in elevating their homes already tend to insure [ χ 2 = 18.14; degrees of freedom (df) = 1; p < 0.001] and expect elevating to decrease their premiums. High insurance premiums discourage the uptake of insurance among renters (OR = 0.56; p < 0.05), for whom flood insurance is more of a luxury good than it is for homeowners.

A persistent drop in property value substantially increases the odds of relocating (OR = 2.42; p < 0.001). Although one might expect homeowners to be trapped by a lack of resources to move, this finding supports the prospect theory of Kahneman and Tversky (1979) , who showed that people are more sensitive to losses than gains. When property values fall, residents may be motivated to leave before losses plummet further. Although homeowners highly value keeping their homes (mean = 4.31; sd = 0.73), these findings suggest that they are willing to depart from their homes if the market signal is strong enough, as happened after the 2008 financial crisis. A substantial rise in the cost of rent is the dominant driver of relocation among renters, increasing their odds by a factor of 6 (OR = 6.29; p < 0.001). This reflects renters’ highest priority: affordable housing (mean = 4.37; sd = 0.84; SI Table S-3 ).

The prospect of extreme flooding was not a strong predictor of any intended adaptive behavior for homeowners or renters ( Table 3 , models 1b–6b; SI Table S-4 , models 7b–10b), resembling findings from migration studies in which disasters tend not to cause permanent moves ( Bohra-Mishra et al. 2014 ). As found by Botzen et al. (2015) , extreme flooding was only a significant driver for households that had previously experienced damage from similar events in the past. Frequent nuisance flooding, on the other hand, is a systematic driver of intended relocation and home elevation but is an inhibitor of insurance uptake ( Table 3 , models 1b–6b; SI Table S-4 , models 7b–10b). Frequent nuisance flooding increases a homeowner’s odds of relocating by a factor of 3 (OR = 3.32; p < 0.001). Perception of public protection moderately reduces these odds to a factor of 2, as shown by taking the difference in OR between models 2b and 1b (with and without the presence of public flood protection, respectively). Frequent nuisance flooding also encourages renters to relocate (OR = 1.96; p < 0.01) and discourages homeowners to insure, decreasing their odds of insuring by nearly 40% (OR = 0.62; p < 0.05). The latter may be related to the fact that any damage from nuisance flooding is not covered by the National Flood Insurance Program.

Inconsistent perceptions about the effect of climate change on flooding may help to explain why households feel less sensitive to extreme events. While 80% of respondents perceive climate change as a real threat and 88% perceive that rising sea levels have already increased the frequency or severity of flooding (or will by the midcentury), several respondents during in-person interview discussions noted that sea level rise affects nuisance but not extreme flood events. Moreover, many residents noted that they would “take their chances,” stating that, even with climate change, the chance of an event occurring during their lifetime is small enough that the expected net gain of costly adaptation is low. In reality, the frequency of all flooding levels (from minor to extreme) will increase in the near, intermediate, and long terms from SLR ( Buchanan et al. 2016 ) alone, and potentially also from an increase in the frequency of tropical cyclones ( Garner et al. 2017 ). For example, it is projected that SLR may increase the frequency of the historic 10-, 100-, and 500-yr flood levels by a factor of 31, 5, and 3, respectively, in NYC by 2050 ( Buchanan et al. 2017 ). More research is required to help distinguish households’ understanding of the impact of climate change on flooding and their associated risk tolerance for events of varying intensities.

Overall, there is strong support for the presence of single-action bias since there are several statistically significant, negative relationships between the uptake of smaller (low-hanging fruit) and larger adaptation measures (H1). We found only partial support for H2 and H3. Although homeowners value living near the coast and keeping their homes, these values generally do not appear to influence adaptive behavior. On the other hand, homeowners and renters who strongly value their community are less likely to relocate and more likely to insure, respectively. There is also evidence that homeowners and renters who value avoiding flooding-related costs are more likely to relocate and less likely to insure, respectively.

There is strong evidence that households are more likely to adapt when nuisance flooding becomes more frequent (H4), if their peers adapt (H5), and if their property values fall or costs of rent rise (H6). There is some evidence that public flood protection affects adaptive behavior (H7). Although the presence of a specific strategy, like a storm surge barrier or portfolio of NNBF, is not a strong predictor, the presence of a strategy (i.e., any strategy) substantially reduces homeowners’ odds of relocating. As to be expected, households are much less likely to purchase flood insurance if premiums rise, supporting H8.

Furthering our understanding of what drives households to adapt is important for the development of effective adaptation policies. Our innovative use of discrete choice experiments allowed us to measure intended adaptive behavior by simulating climatic and social changes that have not yet occurred, but that may occur in the future—an approach that could shape other studies. Our work further suggests that emotions and perceptions filter public information about flood risk in a changing climate and that external stressors heavily influence the uptake of large, preventative adaptation measures.

We provide insights to help avoid unintentional perverse incentives that may act to reduce household and community-level resilience overall. First, households that make small-scale adaptations may be systematically less likely to consider taking additional, more preventative measures. This could have ramifications for coastal cities and communities investing in programs to support the uptake of both small- and large-scale resilience measures among residents, such as emergency preparations and home elevation, respectively. We suggest that public programs work to bundle adaptation measures to help avoid inaction resulting from this single-action bias. Additionally, we found that several external stressors, namely frequent nuisance flooding, falling property values, and rising costs of rent, may strongly encourage households to relocate. Because minor flooding is expected to increase along all coastlines (e.g., by a factor of 31 in NYC by 2050; Buchanan et al. 2017 ) and will likely affect property values, efforts should be taken to prepare for some degree of managed retreat. On the brighter side, the role of peer imitation may pose an opportunity for adaptation. Our findings suggest that homeowners are much more likely to elevate their homes if their peers do so. They are also more likely to relocate if their peers relocate or elevate. This may have positive implications if more public–private partnerships and programs (such as NYC’s Build it Back) can help normalize adaptation by facilitating home elevation among residents. Spreading the word about what one’s neighbors are doing may also help to incentivize others to follow suit and perhaps create a social norm. Moreover, our findings suggest that renters are more likely to relocate because of gentrification, crime, and economic instability rather than from flood risk directly. However, increased flood frequency from SLR may well intensify these issues and weaken the overall vitality of coastal locations. Overall, a striking 64% of homeowners and 83% of renters may intend to relocate in response to different plausible future conditions. This amount is substantial considering the oft presumed political sensitivity of retreat and the lack of regional and federal preparation for large-scale climate-induced migration. Because our results are biased toward upper middle-income homeowners, more research is required to help generalize findings. However, our survey framework could be adapted to support other adaptive behavior studies.

Acknowledgments

Author Buchanan thanks Elke Weber, Guy Nordenson, Robert Socolow, Robert Kopp, and Alin Coman for thoughtful discussions and feedback. She also thanks the Princeton Survey Research Center for surveying guidance and materials.

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Foss Barrier (2020)

Foss Barrier (2020)

The Foss Barrier and associated pumping station is a vital asset in the City of York’s flood defences and was constructed in the 1980s in response to severe flooding five years earlier. In flood conditions, a mechanical gate can be lowered to stop rising waters in the River Ouse from flowing back up into the River Foss, preventing flooding to large sections of the city. When the barrier is down, the facility relies on up to eight pumps to transfer flows from the River Foss around the barrier into the River Ouse. During December 2015, the most severe floods in a generation hit the city. Water levels on the River Foss rose to the highest recorded level and entered the main control building at the Foss Barrier rendering the facility inoperable.

After significant involvement in the initial emergency flood response, JBA Bentley (a joint venture between JN Bentley and Jeremy Benn Associates) was instructed to carry out the high-profile upgrade to the pumping station, gate and ancillaries. The key objective of these works was to enhance the overall resilience and capacity of the site, whilst critically ensuring the pump station remained operational throughout.

Temporary works installation : Within three months of the 2015 event, construction works began on an innovative 3m high temporary platform to raise all MEICA equipment above the highest flood level using 596 precast Legato TM interlocking concrete blocks to quickly construct the temporary platform. Using this method meant:

  • Greater resilience to the existing asset : Critical equipment was quickly raised above the highest flood level, providing protection above a 1:1000 year flood event.
  • The permanent solution could be built off-line : Making for a more efficient and safer build, eliminating plant, people and construction interfaces on site.
  • A fully functional pumping station was maintained throughout construction of the permanent works : A pre-requisite of the solution and critical for the client and public alike.

york flooding case study

The swapping of pump one to start the 7-yearly maintenance cycle - Courtesy of JBA Bentley

Early permanent pump installation : Preventing another significant flood event at the earliest opportunity was paramount to all involved. In order to do this the pump capacity was increased ahead of the winter of 2016. The rapid construction of the temporary platform meant that new long-lead pumps and drives could be procured and installed early without any building modifications. The eight new pumps and pump drives, capable of increasing the pumping capacity from 30 to 40m 3 /s, were installed within the existing pump wells in September 2016.

Full pumping capacity achieved : Whilst the permanent works continue towards a fully integrated site, full pumping capacity was achieved in February 2018. The maximum capacity with all eight pumps running simultaneously is 50m 3 /s (50,000 l/s). This has the equivalent flow output as having 250,000 standard household taps running at any one time. This pumping capacity is an increase of 20m 3 /s and provides enhanced flood protection to the residents and businesses of York.

In early 2019, completion of a single-storey extension and new generator platform, meant that the installation of the five independent generators, fuel store and all the new MEICA equipment, could be installed into their final permanent locations. With the majority of the pumping station operational in Q3 of 2019, the works focus then turned to the mechanical gate, surrounding structure and ancillaries.

Construction on these three elements has progressed unimpeded. This is due to the fact that these elements have minimal relationship to the existing pumping station on site, and vast amounts of the work can be carried out off-site. Working off-line has demonstrated the successes that can be achieved through a flexible, innovative approach.

The barrier : Due to the increasing threat of flooding it was agreed that the existing mechanical gate needed replacing. Qualter Hall & Co. Ltd were chosen to manufacture the mechanical gate, accompanying bridge deck and gate ancillaries, such as winches, motors and drive shafts. Discussions had been undertaken regarding retrofitting additional plates to the top flange of the existing barrier, in order to minimise waste, reduce lead times and reduce costs. However, the final quality of the weld could not be verified and so it was agreed with the client that a new gate would be manufactured and installed.

york flooding case study

The barrier has been manufactured off site to enable greater quality control- Courtesy of JBA Bentley

The installation of the mechanical gate is programmed for Q4 of 2020. Once the new gate has been installed it will raise the defence level in line with the other elements of the project.

The bridge and gate structure : Qualter Halls & Co. Ltd began manufacturing the bridge in October 2019. Working off-line allowed for tighter quality control measures to be put in place. This was vital as the exact location of the new components had to be identical to the locations of the elements on the existing gate and bridge, working to ±1.5mm.

The floodwall : As global warming becomes more prominent, increasing the overall flood resilience of the City of York has always been a key driver of the scheme. Ensuring the reliability of the Foss Barrier and gate was one element; the other was to increase the height of the surrounding flood defences to ensure protection against greater events.

Across the site there is over 150m of concrete-stem, brick-clad floodwalls. To further reinforce the resilience of the city, all the surrounding floodwalls are being raised, thus providing protection against future flood events.

york flooding case study

Works to the base of the floodwall included thickening the concrete stem to more than 500mm - Courtesy of JBA Bentley

Due to the ever-changing nature of the scheme, collaboration between designer, contractor and client has been key. It is paramount to have key decision makers on site working together. Co-locating key parties, such as client, design, contractor and MEICA specialists, from day one has been crucial to the success of the project. Working together to successfully deliver a scheme of this value and complexity has been challenging, but we are proud to have done so safely, on budget, and to a high standard.

As the defined scope of the project has developed over time, multiple project cost control measures have been supplemented by regular risk control meetings. These meetings would include members from JBA Bentley, the Environment Agency , Jacobs, and other key subcontractors. Regularly working through any issues from site, with all parties involved allowed for more comprehensive programming and forecasting. Each month forecasts were submitted and discussed. This better understanding of cash flow, risks and challenge, has helped increase confidence in the overall project costs.

The recent flooding that occurred in York, and the devastation that it caused, has reiterated how visible the scheme is to public, and it is now considered one of the Environment Agency ’s most high-profile sites. With the site situated in the centre of York, there are many different stakeholders. This has meant that the solution has had to deliver benefits to varying groups. Customer and stakeholder satisfaction have been a key consideration throughout the project, with communication being broadcasted on different social media platforms by JBA Bentley and The EA’s communications team.

york flooding case study

(left) Works to the base of the floodwall included thickening the concrete stem to more than 500mm and (right) scaffolding has been erected around the Foss Barrier to enable decommissioning - Courtesy of JBA Bentley

One of the most significant stakeholder groups have been the residents of York themselves, who endured the destructive flooding in December 2015 and February 2020. Therefore, significant effort was made regarding stakeholder engagement, including site visits from a variety of parties, including The Secretary of State, CIWEM (Chartered Institution of Water & Environmental Management), Rotary Club, Local Councillors and EA Regional Directors.

The team’s open approach has helped facilitate the works, and enabled stakeholders to engage with the scheme and understand the benefits the asset delivers to York and the surrounding areas. The site has also hosted several educational visits for local universities and the wider industry, introducing them to flood risk management, and the specifics of the Foss Barrier solution. For the past four years the scheme has been registered with the Considerate Constructor Scheme and the Foss Barrier Project is widely acknowledged to have been successful by the populous of York.

  • Design & build : JBA Bentley
  • Design (permanent works) : Jacobs
  • M&E installation : AMCO Giffen
  • Commissioning support : LEADA Engineering
  • Structural steelwork : ECS Engineering Services
  • Piling : Roger Bullivant Piling
  • Pumps and VSDs : Xylem Water Solutions
  • MCC & systems integration : Blackburn Starling
  • Bridge and flood barrier : Qualter Hall
  • HV Switchgear : Schneider Electric Ltd
  • HV Transformers : Wilson Power Solutions
  • Weedscreen : Ovivo
  • Generators and fuel system : Yorpower
  • Lifting equipment : AIS Vanguard

Throughout the whole construction programme, works have been planned so that the temporary pumping station could be operated and maintained without compromise when refurbishing the permanent station. Early on in the programme of works, JBA Bentley released the cost and environmental benefits of using the permanent MEICA equipment as part of the temporary station. This meant minimising temporary or abortive purchases and maximising value to the EA, along with providing earlier enhanced protection to the City of York.

Using off line manufacturing techniques and early supply chain engagement, has meant that early procurement could take place. This meant that specific tasks could be carried out off-site in controlled environments, increasing the level of quality control. An example of this is the electrical sub-contractor having access to the bridge manufacturing facility to carry out the first fit of all the electrical components, prior to the bridge arriving to site. Increasing quality, reducing the health and safety risks on site, and reducing the overall project programme.

york flooding case study

The Foss Barrier - Courtesy of JBA Bentley

Due to the high-profile status of the scheme, over the past few years the project has been nominated for various awards and accolades with various results, including:

  • Constructing Excellence 2019: Civil Engineering Project of the Year Award - Winner.
  • The British Construction Industry Awards (BICA) Temporary Works Initiative 2019 - Winner.

Through innovative solutions, continuous development, and engagement with all stakeholders, the scheme has been able to showcase some the best engineering solutions within the industry.

Through collaborative working, hard work, determination and diligence of the entire project team, the project has been able to progress at pace. With the majority of the work being carried out off-line, this has allowed for early procurement of long-lead items, vitally reducing the overall project programme. Throughout the scheme, many challenges had to be overcome, which were faced head-on to drive towards achieving the key objective of enhancing the resilience and capacity of the site, whilst always protecting the people and businesses of York. The project increases pumping capacity by 55% and provides increased protection to over 1,000 properties.

The scheme has been able to progress at such pace due to:

  • Early contractor and subcontractor engagement with the design team streamlining design and construction issues.
  • Co-location of key stakeholders to allow vital decisions to be made with input from all parties.
  • Collaborative review on design, driving safety and efficiency and embedding a ‘right first time’ culture within all parties.
  • Agreements between different parties, allowing for additional works to be instructed quickly through PMIs, meaning work on site could begin earlier than traditional contracts.

york flooding case study

(left) The Foss Barrier and (right) flooding: February 2020 - Courtesy of JBA Bentley

The importance of the scheme was once again noted in early 2020 when the Foss Barrier and Pumping Station had to be utilised for one of the longest periods in its history – 18 consecutive days. To put this into perspective, the barrier had only been utilised for 18 days in total over the previous 24 months.

During this event, the pumping station was working around the clock in order to ensure that the residents of York had peace of mind. At times all eight pumps were working to over half their full capacity, 30m/s. With the majority of the works complete by this point, the pumping station remained running on automatic (with an operative there for any emergency failures).

The editor and publishers would like to thank Fergus Veale, Civil Engineer with JBA Bentley, and Craig Fisher, Contracts Manager with JBA Bentley, for providing the above article for publication.

Attachments

  • EA - Foss Barrier 2020 (6 MB)

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Future Strategies

State Case Studies

Federal Review

Management Goals

  • Holistic Approach to Coastal FRM

CONTENTS ≡

CONTENTS ✕

Coastal Management Program

Shoreline regulations, floodplain management, wetland management, building codes, community planning, stormwater and runoff management, erosion management, climate adaptation initiatives, state management capacity, alternatives to structural mitigation, long-term planning, balance of mitigation and disaster recovery, holistic management approach, new york coastal flood risk management case study.

york flooding case study

Policies and Programs

The New York Coastal Management Program , established in 1982, is housed within the New York Department of State’s Office of Planning, Development, and Community Infrastructure . Much of the program’s legislative authority is drawn from the state Waterfront Revitalization of Coastal Areas and Inland Waterways law as well as the Coastal Erosion Hazard Areas law . The program pursues goals related to coastal resources protection and development, local waterfront revitalization, coordination of major activities affecting coastal resources, public awareness of coastal issues, and federal consistency with state coastal management policies. Within New York, the Department of State administers the program and coordinates its implementation in cooperation with the state Department of Environmental Conservation as well as other state agencies.

Coastal program boundaries extend along the coast of Long Island, New York City, Hudson River estuary, both Great Lakes that border New York, and the Niagara River. Specific landward boundaries of the coastal program vary by region and locality due to initial delineation proposals from local government agencies. All barrier and coastal islands on Long Island are included within program boundaries along with areas 1,000 feet landward of the shoreline, extending further in some cases. The New York City program boundary generally extends 500 to 1,000 feet inland from the shoreline, with select areas along major tributaries also extending further. Within the Hudson River Valley the landward boundary is generally 1,000 feet but may extend up to 10,000 feet in areas that possess high aesthetic, agricultural, or recreational value. In the Great Lakes region the boundary is also generally 1,000 feet, though urbanized areas or transportation infrastructure parallel to shore limit the boundary to 500 feet or less in some cases.

Coastal management program consistency reviews require federal actions in the state coastal zone to be consistent with the enforceable policies of the state program or the policies of an approved local waterfront revitalization program. The program also contains provisions to ensure consistency of state actions in coastal areas. Of the 44 coastal management program enforceable policies in New York, seven specifically address flooding and erosion hazards. These policies touch on a number of aspects of coastal flood risk management including the siting of buildings in coastal areas to minimize risk to property and human lives, protection of natural features that mitigate coastal flood risk, construction of erosion control structures to to meet long-term needs, prevention of flood level increases due to coastal activities or development, prevention of coastal mining or dredging from interfering with natural coastal processes, use of public funds for erosion protection structures, and use of non-structural mitigation measures when possible. Additional enforceable policies address coastal development, fish and wildlife resources, public access, recreation, historic and scenic resources, agricultural lands, energy and ice management, water and air resources, and wetlands management.

At the state level, aspects of New York’s Environmental Conservation Law , Local Waterfront Revitalization Program , and State Environmental Quality Review permitting program influence coastal zoning and development decisions. Article 34 of the Environmental Conservation Law requires the identification of coastal erosion hazard areas and rates of recession of coastal lands. Shoreline setbacks must then be implemented at a distance that is sufficient to minimize damage from erosion. Article 36 of the Environmental Conservation Law , the state Flood Plain Management Act, also addresses coastal hazards, requiring walled and roofed buildings to be sited landward of mean high tide and prohibiting mobile homes within coastal high hazard areas, among other restrictions. Article 15, Water Resources Law , regulates the placement of coastal structures such as docks or piers and also addresses the placement of fill in coastal areas. Together these elements of the Environmental Conservation Law provide much of the legal basis for zoning decisions that can affect coastal flood risk at the municipal and local level.

Participation in the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program can also influence a local government’s coastal zoning decisions. In the process of preparing and adopting a revitalization program, local governments provide a more specific implementation of the state Coastal Management Program, taking advantage of local regulatory powers such as zoning ordinances and site plan review. Upon approval of a Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, state actions must then be consistent with the local program. In this way the enforceable policies of the Coastal Management Program, including those that relate to coastal flooding and erosion, are incorporated into local zoning decisions. Elements of enforceable policies are also incorporated into environmental permitting through the State Environmental Quality Review Program, which requires state agencies and local governments to prepare an environmental impact statement for any action that may have a significant impact on the environment. If an action in a coastal area requires the preparation of an impact statement, it must also be determined that the action is consistent with any relevant coastal enforceable policies. Consistency reviews must also be applied to NYS SEQRA type 1 actions as well as unlisted actions.

Floodplain management activities within New York are primarily conducted through the National Flood Insurance Program . Any regulations developed by the state must be at a minimum as strict as those prescribed by FEMA. Beyond the state level communities may adopt more restrictive floodplain management regulations. Within the state, local communities largely regulate development within federally designated Special Flood Hazard Areas, with state assistance provided by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Local development permits govern private development within floodplains as well as development by a county, city, town, village, school district, or public improvement district, as specified in the state Environmental Conservation Law.

State standards for floodplain development permits in all designated special flood hazard areas require adequate anchorage and use of flood resistant material for all new construction and substantial improvement to existing structures. Utilities must also be designed in a manner that minimizes or eliminates risk of damage or failure during flood events. In areas where base flood elevation data exists, new construction or substantially improved residential structures must have the lowest floor at two feet above the BFE, including basements and cellars. Nonresidential structures may employ floodproofing to provide protection. Any enclosed areas below the base flood elevation must be designed to allow for the equalization of hydrostatic forces on exterior walls during a flood event. If no base flood elevation has been determined, new construction or substantially improved residential structures must be elevated above grade to the depth specified on the corresponding flood insurance rate map or two feet if no number is specified, with nonresidential structures again able to employ floodproofing measures. All state agency activities, whether directly undertaken, funded, or approved by an agency, must also be evaluated in terms of significant environmental impacts under the State Environmental Quality Review program, which includes a substantial increase in flooding as a criteria of significance. An environmental impact statement must be prepared if it is determined that an action may have a potential significant adverse impact.

All structures must be located landward of mean high tide levels within coastal high hazard areas, and all new construction or substantially improved structures must be elevated on pilings or columns so that the bottom of the lowest horizontal structural member of the lowest flood is elevated to or above the BFE. Pilings or column foundations must be adequately anchored, and fill is prohibited for use as a structural support for any new structure or substantial improvement. Space below the lowest floor may not contain obstructions to flood flows or otherwise be enclosed with non-breakaway walls. Any such space below the lowest structural floor may not be used for human habitation. New development or substantial improvement to structures must also not affect sand dunes in any way that increases potential flood damages.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is also responsible for wetland management within the state. Statutory authority for wetland regulations stems from the Tidal Wetlands Act and Freshwater Wetlands Act , part of the larger state Environmental Conservation Law . Wetlands and wetland regulations are divided into either tidal or freshwater, and wetlands are further classified within each category. State wetland inventories containing information on delineated areas and classifications are made available for public use as part of the state wetland mapping program. Activities within wetland areas are regulated through a permit system.

Tidal wetlands regulations are designed to allow uses of wetlands that are compatible with the preservation, protection, and enhancement of ecological values including flood protection and storm control. Development restrictions require that all buildings and structures in excess of 100 square feet be located a minimum of 75 feet landward from tidal wetland edges, with less stringent setbacks in place for buildings located within New York City. Similar setback requirements exist for impervious surfaces exceeding 500 square feet. On-site sewage systems must have a setback of at least 100 feet, and a minimum of two feet of soil must be between the bottom of a system and the seasonal high groundwater level.

Permit standards for activities within tidal wetlands require that any proposed activity be compatible with the overall state policy of preserving and protecting tidal wetlands, and as such any activity may not cause any undue adverse impact on the ecological value of an affected wetland area or any adjoining areas. Standards also require that any activity within tidal wetlands be compatible with public health and welfare, be reasonable and necessary, and take into account both alternative actions and the necessity of water access or dependence for the proposed action. The state also publishes compatible use guidelines for activities within wetlands based on wetland type. If any activity is presumed to be incompatible with state tidal wetland use guidelines, an applicant must overcome the presumption of incompatible use and demonstrate that the activity is compatible with the preservation, protection, and enhancement of wetland values. If a use is specifically listed as incompatible within guidelines the use is then prohibited. Permitted activities in areas adjacent to tidal wetlands must also be compatible with public health and welfare, have no undue adverse impact on wetland ecological values, and comply with use guidelines.

State flood-resistant construction requirements are listed in the International Residential Code as adopted by New York State . Regulations apply to new residential buildings and structures located fully or partially within flood hazard areas as well as any substantially improved or restored structures within flood hazard areas. Construction requirements are based on the design flood elevation, which at a minimum must be the higher of either the peak elevation of a 1% annual chance flood event or the elevation of the design flood event as adopted on community flood hazard maps. Structures within flood hazard areas must generally be designed and anchored to resist the flood forces associated with the design flood elevation, and methods and practices to minimize flood damage must also be employed.

For the purposes of determining appropriate structural elevations, the lowest floor of a structure is defined as the lowest floor of any enclosed area, including basements. Within flood hazard areas not subject to high-velocity wave action, structures must have the lowest floor elevated to two feet above the base flood elevation or design flood elevation, whichever is higher. Utility systems must also be elevated to this standard. If no depth number is specified structures must be elevated not less than three feet above the highest adjacent grade. Any enclosed area below the design flood elevation must be used only for building access, parking, or storage and must contain flood openings sufficient to equalize hydrostatic forces on exterior walls.

For buildings and structures located in coastal high-hazard areas, including both V zones and Coastal A zones, the lowest floor must be elevated so that the lowest horizontal structural members are elevated to either the base flood elevation plus two feet or the design flood elevation, whichever is higher. Any walls below the design flood elevation must be designed to break away without causing damage to the elevated portion of the building, and again may be used only for parking, building access, or storage. Structures must be elevated using adequately anchored pilings or columns, with select exceptions in Coastal A zones. The use of fill for structural support and any construction of basement floors below grade are prohibited. New buildings and any substantially improved structures in coastal high-hazard areas must be located landward of the mean high tide, and any alteration of sand dunes must not result in any increased potential for flood damage in surrounding areas.

Planning at the state level is guided by the State Smart Growth Public Infrastructure Policy Act , an article within the larger Environmental Conservation Law. The act outlines criteria for public infrastructure projects that are either approved, directly undertaken, or financed by state infrastructure agencies. Among these criteria is a requirement that future public infrastructure projects mitigate future climate risk due to sea level rise, storm surge, or flood events based on available data or predictions of future extreme weather conditions. This and other criteria must be met to a practicable extent, and if deemed impracticable an agency must provide a detailed statement of justification.

The Office of Planning, Development, and Community Infrastructure within the Department of State administers several programs involved in community planning. The New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program provides recovery and resiliency planning assistance to communities affected by severe storm events, including hurricanes Sandy and Irene. The program is operated through the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery and involves collaborations between state teams and community members to develop reconstruction plans and strategies to increase physical, economic, and social resilience, often including elements related to mitigating future flood risk. State Waterfront Revitalization Programs are also involved in community redevelopment planning. These programs establish land and water use policies and identify revitalization projects at a local level to allow for sustainable use of coastal resources, including planning for coastal flood risk resilience. Local Waterfront Revitalization Programs can also be a conduit for technical assistance and grant funding to facilitate climate change adaptation through the New York State Environmental Protection Fund grant program , a permanent fund addressing a broad range of environmental and community development needs.

The majority of stormwater regulations in New York focus on water quality issues as part of the State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System , a state program that has been approved by the EPA as part of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System . The program regulates point source discharges to both groundwater and surface waters and also conducts permitting for stormwater runoff from industrial activities, municipal sewer systems in urbanized areas, and construction activities. The program is administered by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

While water quality is the focus of stormwater programs within the state, the state stormwater design manual lists best practices that include measures to reduce overbank flooding in order to maintain pre-development peak discharge rates for two and ten-year frequency storm events following development. The design manual also addresses risks due to potential floodplain expansion following development as well as green infrastructure strategies. These green infrastructure strategies are presented as a means to meet runoff reduction standards, which require that post-development conditions replicate pre-development hydrology. Stormwater projects, like all activities undertaken, funded, or approved by state agencies, are also under the purview of the State Environmental Quality Review Act , which requires preparation of an environmental impact statement if a project is likely to cause a significant increase in flood risk.

Coastal erosion in New York is managed within designated coastal erosion hazard areas. Areas are designated as per requirements of the state Coastal Erosion Hazard Areas Act , part of the larger state Environmental Conservation Law. Regulatory programs within identified hazard areas are administered by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Programs may also be established at a local level if minimum state standards and criteria are met. The objectives of the program, as outlined in the state administrative code, are to ensure that activities in coastal areas subject to flooding minimize or prevent damage to property and natural features, that structures are placed at a safe distance from hazard areas to prevent premature damage to both structures and natural features, that public investment likely to encourage development within erosion hazard areas is restricted, and that publicly financed structures are only used when necessary and effective. Sections of the state administrative code also describe the erosion protection functions of natural protective features in order to guide the review of permit applications.

Coastal erosion management permits are required for any regulated activity conducted within a designated coastal erosion hazard area. Coastal erosion management permit standards require that any proposed activity be reasonable and necessary, with consideration of proposed alternatives, and that an activity will not likely lead to a measurable increase in erosion at the proposed site or other locations. Standards also require activities to prevent or minimize adverse effects to natural protective features, existing erosion protection structures, or natural resources such as fish and wildlife habitat.

Regulations within structural hazard areas allow for placement of movable structures, with construction restrictions, if a permit has been granted. Construction or placement of nonmovable structures is prohibited. Any public utility systems within structural hazard areas also require a coastal erosion management permit. Additional restrictions on regulated activities are present within natural protective feature areas, including nearshore areas, beaches, bluffs, primary dunes, and secondary dunes. Construction of erosion protection structures is allowed within such areas provided the structure meets permitting requirements and is designed to prevent or minimize damage to property and natural features in a cost-effective manner. Structures must be designed to control erosion on site for a minimum of 30 years.

New York has put forth several climate adaptation measures at the state level, led primarily by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Sea-level rise projections for threatened coastal areas are currently published within the state administrative code, a recommendation from the previously convened NYS Sea Level Rise Task Force . The projections formally establish sea-level rise levels throughout Long Island, New York City, and the Hudson River, providing information based on five risk scenarios and extending out to 2100. The Department of Environmental Conservation has also formally acknowledged its role in climate change adaptation through Commissioner’s Policy 49: Climate Change and DEC Action . The policy outlines methods by which climate change considerations may be integrated into current DEC activities and programs, including making greenhouse gas reductions a primary goal, creating specific mitigation objectives for existing and future programs, incorporating adaptation strategies into programs and activities, considering climate change implications in daily department activities, and identifying specific actions to further climate change goals and objectives as part of annual planning processes. The policy goes on to establish mitigation and adaptation objectives as well as departmental responsibilities and implementation procedures.

The 2014 Community Risk and Resiliency Act (CRRA) forms the basis for a number of climate adaptation initiatives within New York from a legislative standpoint. The previously mentioned sea-level rise projections were a product of the CRRA, as the act amended the state Environmental Conservation Law to include a requirement that the DEC adopt science-based projections. The CRRA also amended additional sections of the Environmental Conservation Law to require applicants for identified funding and permitting programs to demonstrate that risk due to sea-level rise, storm surge, and flooding have been considered in project design and requires the DEC to incorporate similar considerations into facility-siting regulations. The sea-level rise, storm surge, and flood risk mitigation components of the Smart Growth Public Infrastructure Policy Act are also tied to the CRRA. The CRRA also directs the Department of State and Department of Conservation to develop model local laws that consider data-based future risk due to sea-level rise, storm surge, and flooding as well as guidance on the use of natural resources and natural processes to enhance community resilience to such hazards.

Elements of Policy Goals/Management Principles

  • State management capacity is bolstered by the New York Coastal Management Program’s federal consistency review process, which requires that federal activities within the state coastal zone be consistent with the program’s enforceable policies. The New York program has 44 enforceable policies in total, with 7 specifically addressing flood and erosion hazards.
  • Local governments can implement the state Coastal Management Program at a smaller scale through the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, extending the influence of state program goals and enforceable policies.
  • The enforceable policies of the state coastal management program address the protection of natural features that mitigate coastal flood risk and the use of non-structural mitigation measures where feasible.
  • Shoreline setbacks must be established within identified coastal erosion hazard areas, and setbacks must be at a distance sufficient to minimize damage from erosion considering the rate of recession of coastal lands.
  • Floodplain management regulations require that any new development or substantial improvement to structures in coastal areas not affect sand dunes in any way that might increase potential flood damages.
  • Wetland management regulations require that structures be located a minimum of 75 feet landward from the edges of tidal wetlands, preserving natural flood risk mitigation functions.
  • Sections of the state administrative code related to erosion management include descriptions of the erosion protection functions of natural features to guide permit applications, and permit standards require that erosion management activities prevent or minimize adverse impacts on natural protective features.
  • The state stormwater management design manual includes information on green infrastructure strategies, which are presented as a means to meet runoff reduction standards and maintain pre-development hydrology for project areas.
  • The state building code requires structures not subject to wave action to have the lowest floor elevated a minimum of one foot above the base flood elevation. This rule applies to the lowest horizontal structural members of structures that are subject to wave action.
  • State regulations require that erosion protection structures in coastal areas be designed to control erosion on site for a minimum of 30 years.
  • Public infrastructure projects approved, undertaken, or financed by state agencies must account for and mitigate risk due to future climate risk factors such as sea-level rise, storm surge, and flood events. Mitigation efforts must be based on available data as well as projections of future conditions.
  • The state has published sea-level rise projections for threatened coastal areas within the state administrative code, formally establishing risk based on five scenarios and extending to 2100.
  • Commissioner’s Policy 49: Climate Change and DEC Action identifies ways that climate change considerations could be incorporated into current state programs and activities and defines departmental responsibilities and procedures for implementing the climate adaptation goals of the policy.
  • The state Community Risk and Resiliency Act formally establishes a number of climate adaptation initiatives within the state, including the requirement that the state Department of Environmental Conservation adopt science-based sea-level rise projections and that applicants to funding and permitting programs demonstrate that climate risk has been incorporated into the siting of facilities.
  • The enforceable policies of the state coastal management program address the siting of buildings in coastal areas to reduce risk and well as restrictions on the use of public funds for erosion protection structures.
  • One of the objectives of the state erosion management program as described in the state administrative code is to restrict public investment that could encourage development within coastal erosion hazard areas. An additional objective is to use publicly financed erosion control structures only when necessary and effective.
  • The New York Rising Community Reconstruction program works to develop reconstruction plans and strategies to increase coastal community resilience following severe storm events, often involving the mitigation of future flood risk.
  • The New York Coastal Management Program lists coordination of major activities affecting coastal resources as one of the program goals, and multiple state agencies are involved in implementing the program’s broad suite of enforceable policies.
  • If an action requires preparation of an environmental impact statement as part of the State Environmental Quality Review Program it must also be consistent with the enforceable policies of the state coastal program, including policies related to coastal hazards.
  • State wetland regulations are based on the preservation, protection, and enhancement of ecological values as opposed to acreage, with flood control and storm protection listed among the functions provided.
  • The State Environmental Quality Review Program includes the potential for a substantial increase in flooding as a criteria of significance, which then triggers the preparation on an environmental impact statement for state agency activities.
  • State Waterfront Revitalization Programs establish land and water use policies that incorporate coastal resilience into revitalization projects and community redevelopment planning.

View the other State Coastal Flood Risk Management Case Studies:

york flooding case study

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New York City Initiates $1.5 Billion Flood Resilience Project after Hurricane Sandy

City of New York

Manhattan, New York, NY

After Lower Manhattan suffered significant damage during Hurricane Sandy, New York City developed plans to establish flood-protection zones, including the building of 10 miles of protection around Lower Manhattan, to raise the resilience of the area’s infrastructure against storms and flooding.

Topics Covered

Initial: 816 Million USD

General Fund/Existing Public Funds

Bonds & Loans

Taxes & User Fees

Project Status

In Progress/Under Construction since 2016

Problem Addressed

Sea level rise, flooding and severe storms caused the city to strengthen infrastructure that would protect the dense residential hub and economic powerhouse from these climate-related impacts.

The devastation New York City suffered as a result of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was significant. The storm resulted in the deaths of 44 City residents and inflicted an estimated $19 billion in damages and lost economic activity. The low-lying waterfront area of Manhattan, which stretches from West 57th St down to The Battery and includes the Financial District, is particularly vulnerable to flooding and also suffered significant damage. Of lower Manhattan’s population of 220,000, the hurricane affected 95,000 low-income, elderly, and disabled residents, as well as damaging infrastructure within a 10-mile perimeter and leaving thousands without power or running water.

Faced with rising sea levels and the risk of flooding or severe storms, the city looked to strengthen the infrastructure in the area to protect this dense residential hub and economic powerhouse from these climate-related impacts.

Solutions Used

In collaboration with BIG (Bjark Ingels Group), along with many others, New York City developed the BIG U proposal as part of HUD’s “Rebuild by Design” competition.

The competition was aimed at rebuilding areas affected by Hurricane Sandy and focused on resilience, sustainability, and livability. The project will serve to protect Lower Manhattan from future flooding and storms and is estimated to cost $1.5 billion.

The BIG U project proposed building 10 continuous miles of protection around Lower Manhattan, with the area broken into compartments to provide separate flood-protection zones. BIG U is made up of 5 compartments incorporated into a 2-stage project, with all compartments designed to work together to protect and enhance the city. The first phase of the project is titled East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) and includes the East River Park compartment. The second phase of the project is titled Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency (LMCR) and includes compartments for Montgomery St to Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge to the Battery, Battery Park, and Battery Park City.

When asked to describe the project, Bjarke Ingels, the founder of BIG, stated “What if we could envision the resilience infrastructure for lower manhattan in a way that wouldn’t be like a wall between the city and the water but rather a string of pearls of social and environmental amenities tailored specific neighborhoods, that also happens to shield their various communities from flooding.

Within the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) Phase and the East River Park compartment, the plan is to bury East River Park under landfill raising the height of flood protection around East River Park to between 8-9 feet above the existing grade. Raising the height of the park above the grade provides flood protection for the park itself, as well as 150,0000 residents and a power sub-station nearby. The project was designed to withstand sea-level rise levels projected for the year 2100. Further storm surge protection comes from several floodwalls and 18 flood gates incorporated into the project’s design.

In developing the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency (LMCR) Phase, the city gathered community feedback through outreach tools like an interactive Open House. Some of the mechanisms used to increase resilience against sea-level rise and flooding are flip up and roller gates, extending the city’s shoreline into the East River, elevating Battery Park’s waterfront esplanade so it can withstand rising sea levels, and building a continuous flood barrier extending out from Battery Park.

New York City increased flood resilience for future decades while creating new space for community planning, like bike paths.

Feedback from the community through tools like an Open House was used to inform the planning process

New York City’s BIG U project will protect Lower Manhattan, a residential hub and financial powerhouse, from future climate disasters.

Something Unique

BIG U was selected as one of the winners of the US Department of Housing & Urban Development "Rebuild by Design" contest in 2016.

Who Should Consider

Cities looking to strengthen flood resistance by incorporating infrastructure into the existing landscape.

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IMAGES

  1. York photographer's flooding picture used by NASA

    york flooding case study

  2. The York floods

    york flooding case study

  3. Drone pilot captures footage of flooding in Yorkshire valley

    york flooding case study

  4. Indoor Air Quality Alert: New York City Flooding

    york flooding case study

  5. 'Considerable Flood Threat': New York County Under State Of Emergency As Northeast Sees Intense Rain

    york flooding case study

  6. Indoor Air Quality Alert: New York City Flooding

    york flooding case study

COMMENTS

  1. York Flooding

    York Flooding A page to help you understand all about flooding in York.

  2. York 2015: Anatomy of a Flood Disaster

    Flood York 2015: Anatomy of a Flood Disaster York has known devastating flooding many times before and if ever there was a city used to its ravages, its residents have felt it. Time and again, the city's defences have been improved and adjusted, as new lessons have been learned - but Christmas 2015 raised the bar once again.

  3. York floods 2015: How the devastating floods unfolded and how York

    Tadcaster also suffered terribly. The 300-year-old main bridge through the town collapsed on Tuesday 29 December, after sustaining unbearable pressure from the risen Wharfe. The moment was captured...

  4. UK Floods Case Study November 2019

    UK Floods Case Study November 2019 The UK experienced an extreme weather event in November 2019 when exceptionally heavy rainfall caused flooding in parts of the UK. Heavy downpours across large parts of northern England led to surface water and river flooding in parts of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Greater Manchester, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.

  5. York Flood Inquiry

    Flooding in York York has known devastating flooding with records going back to 1263 AD. More recently, there were serious floods in 2007 and 2012. The city is defended by a series of coordinated flood defences. However, not all areas of the city are protected by permanent defences. The city also relies on

  6. PDF Appendix A Natural Flood Management Literature Review

    Following the major flooding of York in December 2015, work continues to identify what more can be done to reduce the risk of flooding in the future. In a press release from the Environment ... x Case Study 5: Peak District: Making Space for Water A.2.3 Evidence for Natural Flood Management A.2.3.1 Woodland Creation

  7. The winter 2015/2016 floods in the UK: a hydrological appraisal

    The flooding had severe impacts on properties, infrastructure and livelihoods. Inevitably, the flooding was at the forefront of public, political and media attention through much of the winter and, occurring only two years after the major flooding of 2013/2014, led to a significant debate around flood management in a warming world.

  8. Assessing the economic impacts of IT service shutdown during the York

    In this paper we discuss these restrictions and show that the HEM performs well in the York flood case. In the empirical part of this paper we show that a three-day shutdown of the IT services caused a £3.24 m to £4.23 m loss in York, which is equivalent to 10% of the three days' average GVA (Gross Value Added) of York city.

  9. City of York Council: Towards long-term flood resilience

    21 Oct 2022 The challenge The city of York is located in the Vale of York on the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss. Centred on this urban core, the administrative area extends to include...

  10. Storm Ciara: York flood defences hold as river peaks

    BBC Riverside paths and properties were affected by high river levels through the city centre Flood defences in York have passed their first major test since the Boxing Day floods of 2015....

  11. After the floods, York's residents try to piece their lives back

    Amy Ellis, whose basement is at last being decontaminated a month after the floods struck. All case study photographs by Eloise Ross. We hadn't time to move any of our stuff upstairs, so we left ...

  12. York 5 year flood plan

    The York 5 year flood plan is continuously being developed. For more up-to-date information please click here. After the floods in December 2015, the government committed £45 million to reduce ...

  13. York flood management

    The management strategy Flood defences in York have been operational since the 1978 flood. Separate, but coordinated schemes in the city have now been implemented at a cost of around £10 million. Some of the strategies include….

  14. The River Ouse, York. A case study. Flooding and flood ...

    0:00 / 8:31 The River Ouse, York. A case study. Flooding and flood management. Geography Hawks 3.97K subscribers Subscribe Subscribed 10K views 2 years ago 9) River landscapes York...

  15. PDF how we're reducing the risk of flooding for York

    extra £45 million for York's flood defences. A further £7 million from the government for Foss Barrier. April Announced City of York Council independent review panel. Started improvements to the Foss Barrier. Reviewed and updated the flood warning areas for York based on public feedback. May Published the Foss Barrier investigation report.

  16. York Foss flood barrier work to be finished by January

    7 October 2021 A new flood gate was installed at the barrier in January. (Footage courtesy of the Environment Agency) Major improvement work to York's Foss flood barrier is nearing...

  17. York flooding: Build defences outside city, council says

    Councillors in York lobby for improvements to flooding measures in areas surrounding the city. ... It has agreed to develop a business case to enable it to access £5.8m in government funding to ...

  18. York Flood Inquiry report

    Appendix 9 reports and studies published in 2016. PDF. 628kB. Download. Comment on this page. We provide local government services to around 200,000 people in an area covering approximately 105 square miles. City of York Council: West Offices, Station Rise, York, YO1 6GA. Telephone: 01904 551550.

  19. Values, Bias, and Stressors Affect Intentions to Adapt to Coastal Flood

    The damage from Sandy and the increasing potential for future flood damage has incited NYC, New York State, and Federal agencies to invest in public flood protection. ... However, the sample was also biased toward the characteristics of homeowners in the case-study area, who tend to be an older, wealthier, and more educated population ...

  20. Foss Barrier (2020)

    Published: November 10, 2020. Scaffolding has been erected around the Foss Barrier to enable decommissioning - Courtesy of JBA Bentley. The Foss Barrier and associated pumping station is a vital asset in the City of York's flood defences and was constructed in the 1980s in response to severe flooding five years earlier.

  21. Quantifying Resilience to Coastal Flood Events: A Case Study of New

    These terms are quantified based on the system characteristics including socioeconomic and natural conditions. Recent history of the destructive flood disasters in New York City emphasizes the importance and necessity of quantifying and then increasing resilience in this region. Therefore the proposed measure is applied to a coastal part of NYC.

  22. New York Coastal Flood Risk Management Case Study

    Article 36 of the Environmental Conservation Law, the state Flood Plain Management Act, also addresses coastal hazards, requiring walled and roofed buildings to be sited landward of mean high tide and prohibiting mobile homes within coastal high hazard areas, among other restrictions.

  23. New York City Initiates $1.5 Billion Flood Resilience Project after

    The project will serve to protect Lower Manhattan from future flooding and storms and is estimated to cost $1.5 billion. The BIG U project proposed building 10 continuous miles of protection around Lower Manhattan, with the area broken into compartments to provide separate flood-protection zones. BIG U is made up of 5 compartments incorporated ...