As climate change intensifies, cities will be on the front line, suffering from increased flooding and life-threatening heat waves.
As climate change intensifies, cities will be on the front line, suffering from increased flooding and life-threatening heat waves. City planners are searching for ways to make urban areas more resilient to these looming challenges, and chief among them is weaving nature back into the fabric of our cities.
Eric W. Sanderson, an ecologist and historian at the New York City-based Wildlife Conservation Society, says we need to bring back some of the features — like salt marshes, streams, and woodlands — that helped nature protect the landscape in the past. The author of the 2009 book Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City, Sanderson is now working on an ecological history of New York’s outer boroughs, where disastrous floods have taken lives and destroyed homes in low-lying neighborhoods during recent storms.
In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Sanderson discusses the many ways that urban areas can adapt to sea level rise, worsening storms, and higher temperatures. Among his proposals are redesigning streets, restricting cars, planting trees and gardens on roofs, opening up long-developed ponds and streams, and devising new tax policies that encourage preserving critical ecological areas.
Read more at: Yale Environment 360
