How Boston Is — and Should Be — Preparing for Rising Seas

Five Things the City Is Doing Now, and Five More Things It Ought to Be Doing

While Boston wins accolades for battling carbon emissions—last year the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy ranked it number one of the country’s 34 largest cities because of both energy use and community engagement—the city simply isn’t ready for a rising sea. But it’s coming.

“We’ll see sea-level rise in the next century even if emissions stop today,” says Brian Swett, Boston’s chief of environment and energy since 2012 and a veteran of both the policy and real estate development worlds.  Scenario plans such as predictive maps—including those from Ellen Douglas, a hydrologist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and other scientists around the world—show that by the year 2050, global sea levels will rise at least 2 feet and by 2100, 3 to 6 feet.  (Swett says the city is planning for at least 2.) During normal weather, a 2-plus-foot rise will mean twice-a-day flooding in lower parts of the city. 

During big storms, there will be higher storm surges, flooding perhaps 30 percent of Boston, according to a report Douglas coauthored.

Scientists predict that climate change and sea-level rise will have various effects on the weather, and city planners across the country and the world are starting to look at ways to adapt.  Chicago, for example, will feel more like New Orleans by 2050, and as a result the city has started planting swamp oaks, sweet gums, and other heat-loving trees instead of the white oak that thrived there for centuries.  City leaders have also switched to permeable pavement for alleys and streets to help retain groundwater and ward off drought.  But Boston is a coastal city.  Our big challenge will be sea-level rise.  So what’s being done here?

How Boston Is — and Should Be — Preparing for Rising Seas