Hurricane Sandy's flooding of New York City highlighted the vulnerability of coastal cities to extreme weather events, which are becoming more common. Strengthening and protecting infrastructure and the environment before the fact can be very expensive - and perhaps never needed. The possibility of after-the-fact disaster aid can distort economic perspectives. Why is minimizing economic, environmental, and human costs related to extreme weather such a difficult problem for public infrastructure?

Question

Alexander Cohen

Geography

7 November, 17:13

Hurricane Sandy's flooding of New York City highlighted the vulnerability of coastal cities to extreme weather events, which are becoming more common. Strengthening and protecting infrastructure and the environment before the fact can be very expensive - and perhaps never needed. The possibility of after-the-fact disaster aid can distort economic perspectives. Why is minimizing economic, environmental, and human costs related to extreme weather such a difficult problem for public infrastructure?

+5

Answers (1)

Know the Answer?

Annabelle Boyer · Answer 1

Minimizing economic, environmental, and human costs related to extreme weather is a difficult problem for public infrastructure because New York's geography feautures include 520 miles of shoreline, marshes, beaches, harbors and waterfonts implying an big magnitude of costs requiring a wide range of adaptive strategies to bulid up resilience to hazard from extreme weather, but not as an immediate benefit.

Explanation:

New York has always been a waterfront city, therefore Hurricane Sandy's significant flood and destruction reminded the governments on precedents around the world about extreme weather global complex issues that the city is facing as an urban waterfront community.

New York City with its unique features, coped with storm's coastal flooding disaster and recognizes it needs to cope with the challenges of increasing risk that climate change, sea level rise and coastal storms involve. But the storm city's resilience imply high-costs-strong measures to plan for coastal risks aid in short - and long-term robust infrastructure projects considering the special design for waterfront communities by the means of making the city safer and healthier, but still vibrant and prosperous, vital and sus tainable.

Although critical, planning for the future of these projects depends on budget management associated with each strategy for New York City comprehensive waterfront plan, as this framework requires gigantic public and private investment for ensuring healthy waterways, a strong port, the ecological protection of nat ural habitats, the public's enjoyment of the shoreline, and the economic benefits of in our waterfront trying to understand the magnitude and benefits in the future and in case of disasters.