Hurricanes Helene and Milton have left massive damage and loss in communities across the Southeast and Gulf of the U.S. Yet this may just be the beginning. With near record-warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted a dangerous hurricane season with a record number of storms. Millions of U.S. residents and trillions of assets face potential damage as flood risk is expected to rise by 26% by 2050. Climate change is making extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and heavy rain, more common and severe, and demanding we devise effective protective strategies.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is tasked with the pressing issue of how to best prepare and build strong protection and resiliency for our coastal areas. As one of the main federal actors mandated with supporting resilience for communities vulnerable to flooding, the USACE works across the country studying the deepening risks and creating protective projects called Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) projects. Given the growing magnitude of the combined risks associated with diverse forms of flooding—from extreme rain to sea-level rise and storm surge—we need to ask: How well-equipped is the USACE for this increasingly complicated job? How can the USACE better address the current needs of communities facing flood risks?
A number of community-based organizations from across the East and Gulf Coasts of the U.S. who have worked with the USACE on local projects came together to ask these and other questions in an event organized by the Resilient Coastal Communities Project (RCCP) at the Columbia Climate School. The RCCP, a partnership with the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and the Center for Sustainable Urban Development, had been working since November 2021 on improving the NY/NJ Harbor and Tributaries (HATS) study, which offers a template for how to build protection after the devastating impacts from Hurricane Sandy.
As we joined these discussions, it became clear that other community-based organizations were experiencing similar drawbacks and frustration around the USACE approach as we’d seen in our own region. As a result, RCCP joined forces with the Texas-based Surge Forward coalition (including Houston-based Bayou City Waterkeeper), Miami Waterkeeper, and Norfolk-based Wetlands Watch to explore key ways to improve USACE and better protect our communities. This collaboration was crystalized in a policy brief, Improving Coastal Resiliency Projects with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Last month, we held a well-attended webinar, moderated by Rachel Rhode of the Environmental Defense Fund, with all the partners in this work. In addition to discussing the themes of the policy brief, the speakers also detailed the specifics of the coastal resilience projects in their respective communities and the advocacy around reforming them.
We discussed the five key issue areas that need improvement across all the different communities and made the following recommendations:
1) Take into consideration compound flooding analysis and use the most up-to-date data and modeling. USACE tends to focus on storm surge alone, ignoring heavy downpours, wind damage, groundwater inundation, sea-level rise and other flooding sources that are clear compounding threats that have already caused severe damage and loss of life. According to NOAA, current projects also tend to use significant underestimations of future sea level conditions.
2) Increase the amount and quality of community engagement. Unfortunately for many of USACE’s projects, engagement is poorly conducted and under-resourced, resulting in frustration. To address this, the USACE needs to better collect and utilize community knowledge through properly funded and meaningful engagement that ensures community concerns are met, especially in environmental justice areas that face the most risk and are most often ignored.
3) Use an updated benefits/cost analysis (BCA) that considers critical equity and justice considerations. The BCA employed by USACE uses a narrow range of variables that are skewed to prioritize economic variables and undervalue variables such as ecosystem services, natural and nature-based features, environmental justice concerns, human life and other social variables. The BCA prioritizes protection for higher value property, with more expensive interventions for wealthier communities, with examples from CSRM projects in NYC, Charleston, SC and Norfolk, VA. This often leaves out low-income and environmental justice communities, which frequently hold critical infrastructures and also face the most risk.
4) Leverage natural and nature-based features or landscape features like dunes or marshes that reduce flooding. Natural and nature-based features have vast advantages relative to traditional “gray” infrastructure in that they work with local ecosystems, provide ecosystem services and can defend against multiple sources of flooding. During Hurricane Sandy, wetlands alone prevented $650 million in property damage. Recently, a new plan released by the USACE in Miami included a pilot project that takes a positive step forward in rethinking this approach to natural and nature-based features and should be used in other CSRM projects.
5) Use more nonstructural approaches. Non-structural measures include better floodplain policy, flood impact reduction, flood preparedness and relocation, which have the potential to build long-term resilience faster and more cost-effectively when viable. These solutions can manage flood risk without the additional burdens presented by focusing on structural solutions that also involve heightened long-term costs. These approaches should require collaboration with local authorities, who would lead on questions of zoning and stormwater management, but should be integrated into USACE’s analysis. The USACE’s recent report in Miami further aims to prioritize these solutions in floodproofing and elevating homes, an approach we believe should be adopted in other studies as well.
Our policy brief outlines more about these issues and offers detailed recommendations.
Given the threats we face from flooding, we have to improve the way we approach coastal flood protection projects. Our work suggests that it will take better-resourced and supported communities and government agencies working together more effectively using sophisticated and multi-pronged approaches. The USACE needs to rethink some of the key ways it has been operating. In an age of escalating climate impacts, the protection of our communities depends on it.
Jacqueline Klopp is a research scholar and director at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at the Columbia Climate School.
Robert Rosso is a research associate at the Resilient Coastal Communities Project, a partnership between the Columbia Climate School and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Columbia Climate School, Earth Institute or Columbia University.
