earth science

Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency

Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency rather than just read about it. In short: Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency (LMCR) refers to a set of projects aimed to address potential impacts of climate change on the Lower Manhattan area of New York City. The Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency projects involve constructing flood barriers, as well as redesigning and elevating waterfront public spaces to reduce the risk of flooding from coastal storms and sea level rise in Lower Manhattan.

Key takeaways

Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency (LMCR) refers to a set of projects aimed to address potential impacts of climate change on the Lower Manhattan area of New York City. The Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency projects involve constructing flood barriers, as well as redesigning and elevating waterfront public spaces to reduce the risk of flooding from coastal storms and sea level rise in Lower Manhattan. The projects focus on Battery Park City, the Battery, the Financial District, South Street Seaport, the Two Bridges neighborhood, and East River Park. The need to protect New York City against major storms and sea-level rise became more urgent in the wake of the extensive Hurricane Sandy flooding in 2012. The initiative builds on earlier design proposals including The Big U, which also informed the adjacent East Side Coastal Resiliency project in East River Park. The projects are a more localized alternative to the New York Harbor Storm-Surge Barrier, and have some continuity with the centuries-long Lower Manhattan expansion trend. It seeks to compensate for the historical loss of wetland buffer zones, and would be integrated into the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway.

History In 2006, New York City established the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and released PlaNYC in 2007, a comprehensive sustainability strategy. PlaNYC aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate potential effects of climate change, and included coastal flood resilience measures such as wetlands restoration. In 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg established the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) to assess potential risks of climate change on New York City. The panel issued its first report in 2009, projecting a rise in mean global temperatures and sea-level rise, and in New York City there would be increased precipitation, coastal storm surge and extreme storm events over the next decades, increasing long-term coastal flooding risk in low-lying including Lower Manhattan. The NPCC estimated that the mean sea level in the New York metropolitan region could rise approximately 7-12 inches by the 2050s and 12-23 inches by the 2080s. The NPCC also evaluated a “rapid ice-melt” scenario that could be possible depending on how polar ice sheets respond to warming. In this scenario, sea level could rise by 41-55 inches, providing an upper-bound estimate.

Hurricane Sandy impacts

While PlaNYC measures implemented prior to 2012 helped reduce the impacts of Hurricane Sandy, severe flooding and significant damage still occurred when the hurricane struck the city. At the Battery, storm surge reached 14.1 feet above mean lower low water, while the mean tidal range (between low and high tide) was 4.53 feet, causing flooding around the Battery, in the South Ferry subway station, along West Street, at the entrance of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, as well as around the South Street Seaport and other parts of the Financial District and Lower Manhattan. In December 2012, the city established the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency (SIRR) to assess the impact of Hurricane Sandy and evaluate enhanced flood protection and long-term climate adaptation strategies. The SIRR report identified Lower Manhattan as one of the most vulnerable areas due to its low elevation and concentration of critical transportation and other infrastructure.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency

In research: Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Climate change adaptation, Climate change policy in the United States, Environmental issues in New York City, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency in simple terms?

Why does Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency.