New York City and Copenhagen have joined forces in an international, innovative collaboration to build upon the successes of their respective resiliency projects.
Instead of waiting for more extreme weather to hit, New York City and Copenhagen have decided to leverage experiences from each other and share their successful climate solutions. While New York City is learning from Copenhagen’s experience with cloudburst management, Copenhagen is drawing on New York City’s experience with coastal flooding. For example, New York City’s Cloudburst Resilience Planning Study is based on Copenhagen’s approach, and seeks to use a combination of blue-green and traditional infrastructure to manage extreme rain events. This approach brings added benefits of CO2 sequestration, aesthetic improvements, and increased biodiversity.
Not only does the collaboration demonstrate how to share and develop innovative adaptation projects, but it also paves the way for future climate action partnerships. The extensive engagement involved between the cities’ governments, as well as their public and and private sectors, proves intercontinental collaboration can result in climate-adapted, resilient cities.
$603 million is the estimated total benefits from the Copenhagen-based cloudburst strategy in NYC
The challenge
New York City and Copenhagen experienced extreme weather events in 2011 and 2012, respectively. New York City experienced coastal flooding, and Copenhagen battled downpours. As both coastal cities face rising sea levels and more frequent cloudbursts, they have teamed up to develop projects based on past experiences.
Co-benefits
Economic With full implementation of the Copenhagen cloudburst project, the avoided social and environmental costs are estimated at $290 million.
Environmental The proposed green infrastructure in New York City will reduce runoff and flooding, and also have a natural filtration capacity that treats stormwater before being discharged into Jamaica Bay.
Social Green infrastructure encourages community engagement via activities such as gardening and farming.
Health Flooding in both cities resulted in loss of life and displaced populations, which will be avoided through these climate resilience projects.
About New York City
The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2016 population of 8,537,673 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Many districts and landmarks in New York City have become well known, and the city received a record 61 million tourists in 2016, hosting three of the world’s ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013.
About Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and most populous city of Denmark. The city has a population of 763,908 (as of December 2016), of whom 601,448 live in the Municipality of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is situated on the eastern coast of the island of Zealand; another small portion of the city is located on Amager, and is separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the strait of Øresund. Originally a Viking fishing village founded in the 10th century, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the early 15th century. Since the turn of the 21st century, Copenhagen has seen strong urban and cultural development, facilitated by investment in its institutions and infrastructure. Copenhagen’s economy has seen rapid developments in the service sector, especially through initiatives in information technology, pharmaceuticals and clean technology.
