Coastal Ecological Passage (CEP) as an Innovative Nature-based Defense to Tackle Rising Sea Level

Abstract

This paper explores how urban and landscape design in coastal metropolises can effectively address the threat of sea-level rise by using Coastal Ecological passages (CEPs) to integrate landscape ecology and disaster hazard reduction with urban design. Through the identification and the design of four kinds of coastal ecological passages, a passages’ network will be formed to district the city, and the resilience districts framework will be formed accordingly. This subdivision strategy is designed to facilitate systematically putting resilience measures in place, thus improving sea-level rise disaster resiliency.

This paper details a design strategy on the macro scale, which generates a master plan of ‘CEP’s network’ to identify a ‘resilience districts’ framework for the city of New York. The research culminates with a generalizable urban planning and design framework for protecting critical infrastructure, 'thickening' regional soft systems, and turning the coastal delta metropolitan area into a resilient sponge.

Keywords: sea-level rise action, landscape ecology, urban resiliency