Regarding New York:

“With the potential for significant sea-level rise estimated under continued high levels of emissions, the combined effects of sea-level rise and storm surge are projected to increase the frequency of flooding. What is currently called a 100-year storm is projected to occur as often as every 10 years by late this century.

Portions of lower Manhattan and coastal areas of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Nassau County, would experience a marked increase in flooding frequency. Much of the critical transportation infrastructure, including tunnels, subways, and airports, lies well within the range of projected storm surge and would be flooded during such events.” pp.63

Glowing tanks of clean water

Decentralized infrastructure sized for populations of 300,000 people

The elevated transit lines also carry sea water to the inhabited areas.
Water is pumped by mechanical wave energy first to the settling tank desalination trucks offload municipal solid waste here and send electricity up.

New Yorkers produce, on average, 3 lbs trash per person per day for a hypothetical  50,000 people:
450,000 lbs MSW per day = 225 tons MSW per day = 135,000 kWh per day

Based on the desalination plant in the city of Santa Barbara:
49 gallons of water are desalinated by 1 kW/hour. The plant desalinates 23 million gallons per day using 135,616 kW/hours per day on 2.1 acres of land which supplies 150,000 people with 150 gallons a day.

Based on industry standards for waste to energy:
1 ton municipal solid waste = 600 kWh + 10% remaining fly ash
fly ash is 5% of original weight of material.
Bottom ash is 15% of original weight.

Based on the Marchwood Waste 2 Energy plant located in UK:
165,000 tons of municipal solid waste per year are processed on 2.5 acres.

One Brooklyn block is approximately equal to 3 acres 37 3-acre sites serving 150,000 people of w2e + Dsal for Queens and Brooklyn.

Doubling the size of these plants, we arrive at 18 plants which serve 300,000 people each.  if we add in NYC’s expected share of climate refugees, 600,000 people, we need 4 more.  The fly ash byproduct of the plants can be used in concrete and in asphalt.

For all 22 plants, 399 cubic yards of fly ash /day and 1197 cubic yards of bottom ash / day are generated.

The volume of new construction will require 20 million cubic yards of concrete for eventual buildout - more than utilizing the ash.

fragility of aging/hard/massive infrastructures and the need for more flexibility

resource use accountability at the scale of the individual

economic systems absorb and reflect the true costs of carbon, water, and other resource use on human health

intensified global coastline urbanization (35% total pop. increase from 1995 levels by 2025) to 2.7 billion people (CCSR, Columbia Earth Institute 07/11/06)

increasing innovative design tactics at all scales – hybridization for greater functionality

increasing capacity to visualize/analyze/intervene in complex flows

climate change generates pressure on existing environmental systems and therefore affects human health

research sources:
“Metro East Coast Regional Assessment” CCSR, Columbia Earth Institute 07/2001
“Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change” 10/31/2001
United Nations Environment Program

phase 1: investment to reduce impact

phase 2: addressing the changes that occur

Zones:
Opportunity zone – 15M above 2006 sea level
Intermediate zone – 4.2-15M above 2006 sea level
Dynamic zone – 0-4.1M above 2006 sea level
Water zone – sea level and below

Design Insertions

Operations: Strategic Implementations

Operations:
• Development transfer – after floods, using streets as habitable zones and generating more porosity in alleyways used as streets, deconstructing and recycling existing structures as necessary and processing the materials for new uses: building up mass at JFK, Rockaway; reuse to create new structures; fuel for WTE plants…

• FBF is the new Liberty Island: with ample space to expand facilities and allow new quantities of users, Floyd Bennet Field is an attractive NPS-owned location for a new Liberty Island

As the existing liberty island will be inundated and uninhabitable, a new location should be determined.

Extensive Operations (proposed in all zones):
• Decentralized infrastructure
• Greywater use
• Blackwater treatment in building + Hydrogen production
• Energy generation
• Air filtration (plantings)
• Water catchment
• Composting
• Recycling
• Density bonuses for small carbon, water, electrical footprints
• Capturing and filtering water – porous streets

Detail of microbial fuel cell (research prototype):
At the building scale, sewage can be treated in microbial fuel cells which clean the water and then produce hydrogen fuel as a bybroduct of their metabolism.  Dry sanitary toilets drastically reduce the amount of clean water dedicated to moving sewage around the city and simply making the problem bigger.