Engineered Green Space: Less Pavement, More Flood Prevention

In which borough should your idea take place? Brooklyn

Do you have a specific neighborhood(s) in mind?

Targeted to areas most prone to flash flooding + lacking greenspace

Which audience(s) does your idea help? Select as many as apply.

Youth

Parents

Low income individuals

Older adults

People with disabilities

Describe the challenge you want to address:

"100 year" rainfall events are happening with increased regularity, and there isn't anywhere for the water to go. It runs off our over-paved neighborhoods and overwhelms storm drains, the sewer system, subways and other city infrastructure. These dangerous events will continue to happen and continue to take lives and cost millions of dollars of damage.

Describe your idea and approach to address the challenge:

Simply, we must increase the amount of permeable surface. We have too much pavement. Fortunately, solutions to urban flooding exist, work well, and many are easy to implement. Engineered green spaces are designed to mitigate consequences of flooding while providing ecosystem, recreation and quality of life benefits.

The research portion of this project would aim to identify the best engineered green space solutions for New York City as well as the most impactful locations in terms of delivered benefit and avoided harmful impact of floods. The community organizing portion would aim to build political momentum and support for implementation of the identified solutions.

https://www.curbed.com/2021/09/flooding-new-york-spongy-streets.html
https://news.mit.edu/1048/storm-flooding-engineered-urban-green-space-0713

Write the zipcode that best represents your New York City community:

11215