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Optimizing Multifunctional Green Infrastructure As a Societal Co-Benefit Catalyst in New York City Policies for Coastal and Stormwater Management

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Optimizing Multifunctional Green Infrastructure As a Societal Co-Benefit Catalyst in New York City Policies for Coastal and Stormwater Management Optimizing Multifunctional Green Infrastructure as a Societal Co-Benefit Catalyst in New York City Policies for Coastal and Stormwater Management A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Architecture and Planning COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in Urban Planning by Evelyn Ellis May 2016 TaBle of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. 2 Table of Figures ................................................................................................................ 3 Abstract .............................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 5 Methodology and research focus ............................................................................. 11 Part I: Green Infrastructure, Multifunctionality, and Related Concepts ............... 13 Green and gray infrastructure .................................................................................. 13 Environmental responsibility and climate awareness .......................................... 20 Related concepts and present discourse ................................................................. 26 Ecosystems services ............................................................................................... 27 Sustainability .......................................................................................................... 30 Panarchy .................................................................................................................. 33 Multifunctionality ...................................................................................................... 36 Assessing landscape functions ............................................................................. 40 Transformability ..................................................................................................... 44 Incorporating multifunctionality into GI policy .................................................... 48 Part II: New York City: Green Infrastructure for Coastal and Stormwater Management ................................................................................................................... 51 New York City Context ............................................................................................. 51 Water challenges and management ........................................................................ 54 Combined sewer outflows and stormwater ....................................................... 56 Coastal ecosystems and resiliency in NYC ........................................................ 63 Evolution of blue-green infrastructure policy in NYC ..................................... 66 NYC Policy through the lens of multifunctionality .............................................. 74 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 78 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 84 Appendix ......................................................................................................................... 95 Appendix II: Selected Definitions ............................................................................ 96 2 TaBle of Figures Figure 1: Academic references to “green infrastructure." Method derived from the research of Freeman et al., (2014) .................................................................. 19 Figure 2: Conceptual Discourse: Multifunctional Green Infrastructure. (term “spatiotemporal trajectory” borrowed from Selman, 2012.) Concept map: original by this paper’s author. ............................................................................ 27 Figure 3: The Daly Triangle, illustrating the underlying concerns that govern the drive toward sustainability (Wu, 2013) .............................................................. 31 Figure 4: Panarchy “A classic representation of a panarchy: a nested set of adaptive cycles. Adapted from Gunderson and Holling (2002).” Source: (Garmestani & Benson, 2013) ............................................................................... 34 Figure 5 (Lovell & Taylor, 2013): Comparison of the concept of sustainable with that of multifunctional landscape approach. Sustainable is often represented by the overlapping of environmental, economic, and social pillars, whereas multifunctionality can be envisioned as the stacking of ecological, production, and cultural functions to achieve greater overall performance. 36 Figure 6: Multifunctional Landscape by Function .................................................... 41 Figure 7: Multifunctional Landscape Assessment Tool (MLAT) (Lovell & Taylor, 2013) ......................................................................................................................... 43 Figure 8: EXamples of transformative capacities ....................................................... 46 Figure 9: Multifunctional opportunities ..................................................................... 47 Figure 10: Articles on multifunctional green infrastructure. Method derived from the research of Freeman et al. (2014). .................................................................. 50 Figure 11: Projected flooding for New York City (Kennedy, 2014) ........................ 52 Figure 12 Urban water inputs (Felson, 2016) ............................................................. 55 Figure 13: Urban Water Management Transitions Framework (Felson, 2016) ..... 59 Figure 14 “Description of parts and connections of physical systems linked to flood ecologies and infrastructure” (Neises, 2016) ........................................... 65 Figure 15: Multifunctional Dimensions in New York City Green Infrastructure Policy ........................................................................................................................ 77 Figure 16: “Green Infastructure” in NYC (McPhearson et al, 2014) ....................... 95 3 Abstract Green infrastructure is “an interconnected network of green space that conserves natural ecosystem values and functions and provides associated benefits to human populations” (Benedict & McMahon, 2002). There has been a resurgence of the concept in recent decades, and in New York’s case, especially as it relates to coastal and stormwater management, while awareness of the interconnectedness of persistent social and economic problems to the built and natural environments has grown. “The concept of multifunctionality in GI planning means that multiple ecological, social, and also economic functions shall be explicitly considered instead of being a product of chance” (Hansen & Pauleit, 2014). This research, Optimizing Multifunctional Green Infrastructure as a Societal Co-Benefit Catalyst in New York City Policies for Coastal and Stormwater Management, seeks answers to the questions: do the policies in New York City regarding green infrastructure incorporate the concept of multifunctionality? To what extent does the increasing prevalence of green infrastructure for coastal and stormwater management present a potential catalyst to tie climate urgency to issues of social and economic urgency, and is this catalyst potential reached? By reviewing green infrastructure, multifunctionality, and their correlation, and then analyzing the city’s relevant GI policies, this paper finds 4 that while multifunctionality is increasingly present in NYC policy, policies do not take explicit advantage of climate urgency to expedite social solutions. Introduction Traditionally, twentieth century planning and resiliency strategies have favored the construction of hard, or “gray,” infrastructure as the frontline against the forces of nature that might interfere with our habitat (Crow, 2008). Nationally, many wetlands have been drained for construction, and many walls and levees have been built to keep out the sea (Dahl, 2000; Kazmierczak & Carter, 2010). However, a growing understanding of the complexity of the relationship between the natural and built environment and an increasing awareness among the public of climate change (in particular, sea level rise and increasing storm intensity) over the last 15-20 years, have finally begun to transform the policy landscape around green infrastructure (Economides, 2014). Cities that have transformed their policy include New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and San Diego (Economides, 2014). This increasing awareness among citizens and policy-makers has progressed at all scales, from local to international, as disasters have struck with increasing frequency and intensity, particularly coastal storm surges (UNEP, 5 2010). Two storms that stand out in the early 21st century as catalysts for awareness in the United States are Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans in 2005, and Superstorm Sandy, in New York in 2012. Each of these shed a light not only on the limitations of existing and aging infrastructure in the face of future storms, but on the inadequacy of protective designs that are inflexible and inequitable. The response has been a demand for resiliency (City of New York, 2013). The increasingly popular term “resilient,” while often debated for its semantic accuracy,
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