Blue Zones: Identifying Adaptation Opportunities Using Past, Present, and Future Flooding in New York City Lucinda Royte, manager of urban conservation data, tools, and outreach at the New York Botanical Garden, recently published a paper titled “Blue Zones: Identifying Adaptation Opportunities Using Past, Present, and Future Flooding in New York City” in the Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences. The paper explores how historical ecological data can inform modern flood resilience strategies in the face of climate change. Royte’s interest in the topic was sparked in 2021 during the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which brought unprecedented rainfall to New York City. The storm’s remnants dumped 3.15 inches of rain in an hour, overwhelming infrastructure designed to handle only 1.75 inches. Royte described walking home through Gowanus Creek, now a heavily polluted canal, where sewage water from overflowing catch basins submerged the area. The experience highlighted the recurring pattern of water returning to historically wet zones, a phenomenon she observed in flood maps. The paper’s central hypothesis is that wet areas will remain vulnerable to flooding, both now and in the future. To test this, Royte and her team at the New York Botanical Garden, under the guidance of Dr. Eric W. Sanderson, developed a comprehensive ecological history dataset of 17th-century New York City. This dataset, the result of a 20-year effort to georeference and digitize historical maps, includes topographical, hydrological, and geological data, as well as information on Indigenous Lenape ecosystems and land use. The team integrated this historical data with current and projected flood risk maps to identify “Blue Zones”—areas that were historically wet, remain wet today, and are projected to be wet in the future.#new_york_city #lucinda_royte #new_york_botanical_garden #eric_w_sanderson #hurricane_ida
