"Lessons from Sandy": Federal Policies to Build Climate-Resilient Coastal Regions

Flooded homes in Tuckerton, N.J., on Oct. 30 2012 after Hurricane Sandy made landfall on the southern New Jersey coastline on Oct. 29. (US Coast Guard via AFP/Getty Images)

Robert Pirani and Laura Tolkoff, writing for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, have published "Lessons from Sandy." Highlights of this meaty document include:
- their definition of resilience: "the capacity to recover quickly from shocks and stressors while at the same time reducing future risk."
As they put it, “Resilience” emerged as a buzzword after Hurricane Sandy, but it has existed in many disciplines to describe a system’s capacity to recover from adversity. In the urban context, resilience is a community’s ability to rebound quickly from shocks and stressors while at the same time reducing future risk (Rodin and Garris 2012). Implicit in this definition is the focus on iterative learning, adapting in the face of adversity, and risk reduction. By incorporating resilience as a goal for planning, investment, and operations, metropolitan areas can become less vulnerable over time. Importantly, resilience is about managing known risks but also about preparing for the unpredictable. Consequently, resilience requires solutions that are robust across many future conditions, with multiple lines of defense, and with opportunities to learn as uncertainties become known."

-a holistic view of resilience, which meshes together disaster relief, insurance and flood risks, infrastructure and science.

-recommendations for federal actions (which begin on page 34). This is particularly relevant to those of us who are involved with the President's Adaptation Task Force right now.

You can view the document here and a link will be in the library going forward.