22 impacting thousands of residents currently unaddressed in the federal data. A 2022 report by the city’s comptroller found that by then, rising tides and more frequent storms will put upward of $242 billion in property value at risk of coastal flooding, a 38 percent increase from today. The new maps from the city and FEMA have been promised in 2023 and 2024, respectively. When they are put in place, the city, and its residents, will still face challenges. The city anticipates thousands more residents will be required to pay for flood insurance, a burden many will undoubtedly struggle to meet. Updates to the city’s building code will likely increase costs for developers in flood-prone areas. And many New Yorkers may not see the maps: A state law, which passed in 2022, finally mandates that landlords warn renters about flood risk before they put down a deposit, but the law doesn’t extend the same protection to buyers. In the meantime, ahead of the new maps becoming available, the city has been finding other ways to fill in the public’s understanding of flood risk. The Department of City Planning made an interactive map that lets residents see current flood hazards as well as how they are likely to increase with climate change. In 2022, the mayor’s office released a map New Yorkers can use to check their future risk from flashfloods during a moderate event (a storm with two inches of rain an hour) as well as during an extreme stormwater flood, given expected rises in sea level by 2050 (2.5 feet) and 2080 (4.8 feet). New York City is already using its new flood risk projections for its climate resilience design guidelines, which inform development as well as the planning of infrastructure projects aimed at reducing the impacts of climate-related hazards. To help residents and officials track the progress of the mitigation projects, the city’s Office of Emergency Management is mapping them. And the Department of Environmental Protection built an ArcGIS StoryMaps story in September 2021 to illustrate the city’s stormwater resiliency plan, which involves finding ways to make the Big Apple more “spongy.” Still, although the analysis includes data up to 2017, it will not consider projections for how climate change will impact future storms. “One of the fatal flaws of FEMA flood maps is that they are largely backward-looking,” Rob Moore, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s water and climate team, told the Houston Chronicle last month. “The only place I’m aware of where they’re attempting to include future conditions in flood maps is New York City.” When Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York in 2012, city residents were relying on FEMA flood-risk maps that hadn’t been significantly updated since 1983. In 2016, after a city review found errors with FEMA’s maps, the agency and the city agreed to work on a new map. The delayed FEMA flood-risk map that was promised in 2023 will factor future flood risk, based in part on maps made by the city’s panel on climate change that use a projection of 30 inches of sea level rise by 2050. According to a separate analysis by First Street, New Yorkers can expect a 20 percent increase in flood risk by the year 2050, The Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation tool combines extensive federal hazard data that can be used at national, regional, and local levels to monitor flooding conditions and explore trends.
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