Jamaica Bay, NY | Structures of Coastal Resilience

Site Selection and Analysis

Aerial imagery at Jamaica Bay, 1924. Source: NYC DoITT Map

Jamaica Bay, located in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, is a 20,000 acre water body and the westernmost embayment along the south shore of Long Island. A rich ecological resource, its 85,000 acres of watershed provides a diverse habitat complex with salt marsh islands, grasslands, maritime forests, and woodlands. Today, urbanization has transformed the bay into a constructed sewershed. Combined sewer overflow (CSO) outfalls discharge directly into the bay, degrading water quality and jeopardizing the benthic environment.

Sea level rise and increased nitrogen levels have precipitated the loss of intertidal salt marsh island acreage in the bay and compromised its capacity to reduce wave impact, surge velocity, wind fetch forces, and flood extents. Damage from Hurricane Sandy on Jamaica Bay, the Rockaway Peninsula, and the surrounding communities was extensive. Yet even with sea level rise and the risk of increased storm surge and flooding, this region of the city has the potential to be recast as a resilient ecological, infrastructural, and community asset.

Several successful projects to support the resiliency of the Jamaica Bay region have been initiated. Prior to Hurricane Sandy, the New York District Office of the US Army Corps of Engineers worked closely with local environmental groups to restore several salt marsh islands within the bay. Other initiatives are directed at improving the collaboration between the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and the National Parks Service. Yet a comprehensive plan that addresses poor water quality and sediment starvation at Jamaica Bay could further promote sustained ecological health.

The City College of New York team approaches Jamaica Bay as an interconnected hydrologic and ecologic urban system. The vast scale and fetch dimension of the bay are assets for exploring the performance of natural and nature-based features (NNBFs)—particularly salt marshes—for both ecosystem enhancement and coastal storm risk management. This proposal identifies a holistic set of strategies for supporting coastal resiliency at Jamaica Bay, and includes recommendations for the Rockaway Peninsula, the central marsh islands, and the tributary inlets at the Bay’s interior perimeter. Additionally, the proposal seeks to address social, environmental, and infrastructural vulnerability to enhance the overall resiliency of Jamaica Bay.

Download Phase 1 Report here

Methodology

A comprehensive, resilient vision for the transformation of Jamaica Bay extends from the paradigm shift of coastal storm risk management addressed in the US Army Corps of Engineers’ North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study (NACCS). Given its vast scale, Jamaica Bay may be recast as an impactful ecological, infrastructural, and community asset, capable of enhancing the region’s resiliency. This design methodology engages robust digital and physical modeling of the Bay’s geomorphology, hydrology, and sedimentary dynamics. An effective risk management strategy must also capture a broad understanding of social, ecological, and infrastructural vulnerability.

Evolving edges at Jamaica Bay

Digital Modeling

A robust and accurate topobathy, a digital elevation model (DEM) that seamlessly merges topographic and bathymetric data, is a critical tool for the project. This merged model is integral to the conceptual understanding of terrain as a continuous gradient surface, a transformable basin containing the dynamic medium of water. The Jamaica Bay DEM merges elevation raster data from the land’s topography with bathymetric point soundings of the water’s depth. These two datasets are positioned in reference to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88), with the interpolation of a smooth gradient at the intertidal zone. This DEM, in its existing and modified conditions, allows for comparative analyses of the efficacy of design proposals using digital hydrodynamic modeling tools such as SLOSH, ADCIRC, SLAMM, CH3D-SWAN, SMS-PTM, and the wind fetch model WAVES2012.

Physical Modeling

A detailed morphology of Jamaica Bay, from the scale of the watershed to local features within the embayment, is examined through the use of physical models. Hydraulic water models, in the spirit of the USACE Waterways Experiment Station, have been constructed to test the dynamic conditions of water flow, residence time, overwash, sediment transfer, and surge. Construction methods include topographic contour models, casts of inverse contour models, and continuous-surface CNC-milled models. The empirical results of the water tank studies have provided integral feedback to the design process.

Vulnerability Index

In order to provide a fine-grained study of vulnerability at Jamaica Bay, layered indices of social, environmental, and infrastructural risk are geospatially mapped. Sea level rise affects each of these categories, through possible loss of life and property from flooding, loss of valuable wetland ecologies, and loss of critical infrastructures such as transportation, power, and communication. These vulnerability maps provide a focused lens for assessing at-risk communities and ecologies, and often reveal unexpected patterns of exposure to hazard.

Hurricane Sandy Hindcast, 2012
FEMA Preliminary Work Maps, 2013

Infrastructural Vulnerability

Infrastructure Assets and Vulnerability

Social Vulnerability

Population and Race
Population and Risk Factors

Environmental Vulnerability

Resiliency Strategies

The Jamaica Bay Resiliency Strategies address vulnerability and coastal storm risk management by merging novel techniques of ecosystem restoration with layered nature-based features. The comprehensive Resiliency Plan consists of a framework of three design strategies: the improvement of water quality and hydrologic flow and circulation throughout the bay, the enhancement of coastal verges at back-bay communities, and the development of atoll terraces through bay nourishment and sediment capture via the natural processes of an “island motor” at the salt marsh islands.

Existing DEM – Jamaica Bay West Modified DEM – Jamaica Bay West Flow and Circulation Proposal – Jamaica Bay West Jacob Riis and Fort Tilden Overwash Plains in Storm Event Existing DEM – Jamaica Bay East Modified DEM – Jamaica Bay East Flow and Circulation Proposal – Jamaica Bay East

An important consideration in the design strategy is the improvement of both water quality and hydrologic flow throughout Jamaica Bay. Reducing residence time, particularly in the easternmost reaches of the Bay, will support ecological and benthic health as well as ensure the success of restoration projects within the Bay. Improving flushing through the introduction of tidal inlets, overwash plains, and flushing tunnels may also reduce impacts from surge by providing additional outlets for the retreat of floodwaters. In addition, reintroducing sediment sources from the ocean to the bay will support the nourishment and accretion of the wetland marsh islands.

Verge Enhancements – Mill Basin to Howard Beach Existing DEM – Mill Basin to Howard Beach Modified DEM – Mill Basin to Howard Beach Verge Enhancement Proposal – Mill Basin to Howard Beach Verge Enhancement in 15-foot Surge Event

Strategic gradient enhancement through the elevation of coastal edges at the vulnerable back-bay communities of Jamaica Bay is addressed through a layered system of marsh terraces, earthen berms, and attenuation forests, defined in sum as “verge enhancement.” The project also seeks to connect elevated earthen berms with existing high ground and the linear infrastructure of the Belt Parkway, recasting the verges of this transportation network as a continuous elevated buffer from Mill Creek to Canarsie and Howard Beach. These enhanced verges are foregrounded by low marsh, high marsh, and upland planting zones, providing additional mitigation of wave energy as well as public space. Densely planted sunken maritime forests are established behind the berm.

Existing DEM – Marsh Islands Modified DEM – Marsh Islands with Atoll Terraces Atoll Terrace / Island Motor Proposal Dredged Material Volume Calculations Island Motor – Sediment Transport and Capture

Salt marsh loss at Jamaica Bay is a paradigmatic example of environmental vulnerability, particularly given future sea level rise. A resilient marsh ecosystem provides coastal storm risk management services to adjacent communities through wind fetch reduction and wave attenuation. The project proposes novel strategies of bay nourishment and salt marsh island restoration through an “island motor,” maximizing the effects of the strategic placement of minimal quantities of dredged material as a perimeter “atoll terrace.” This elevated marsh terrace, formed specifically to reduce wave energy and encourage sediment deposition, provides an ideal slope for the upward migration of low marsh grass (Spartina alterniflora) and allows the natural processes of current-driven sediment capture and deposition to nourish the marsh.

Resiliency Proposals

Each of the three Jamaica Bay resiliency strategies, Flow and Circulation, Verge Enhancement, and the Atoll Terrace / Island Motor, are applied and adapted to individual design proposals at project sites in and around the Bay. The Flow and Circulation strategy takes the form of a tidal marsh inlet, an overwash plain, or a flushing tunnel, depending on the existing local context. Verge Enhancement may simply increase the height of existing high ground through an earthen berm, tie into existing infrastructure, or become an integrated hard structure at certain locations. The Atoll Terraces are established within existing shallow intertidal areas, allowing for sediment deposition and bay nourishment to increase the marsh island footprint as well as encourage fringe marsh development at appropriate zones along the perimeter of the Bay.

Pamphlet Library

The Jamaica Bay Pamphlet Library categorizes the team’s focused research on unique topics of inquiry, from archival treasures to environmental engagement to design methodologies. Specific niches of data influential to both the process and project are gathered within each pamphlet.

The Bottom of Jamaica Bay

Vulnerability Factors

Barrier Island Breaches

Photo Archive

The Air Above Jamaica Bay

Evolution of Coastal Structures

Marsh island Restoration

Physical Models

Team, Sources, and Further Reading

The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture
City College of New York

Catherine Seavitt

Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture

Catherine Seavitt is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at CUNY’s City College of New York and principal of Catherine Seavitt Studio. Her research focuses on design adaptation to sea level rise in urban coastal environments and explores novel landscape restoration practices given the dynamics of climate change. Seavitt co-authored the book On the Water: Palisade Bay, a climate adaptation proposal for the New York / New Jersey Upper Harbor; this study, examining the use of “soft” infrastructural systems to mitigate the impacts of storm surge and flooding, was the foundation of the 2010 exhibition Rising Currents at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Kjirsten Alexander

Research Associate

Danae Alessi

Research Associate

Eli Sands

Research Assistant

References

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Bridges, Todd and Paul Wagner for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Use of Natural and Nature-Based Features to Enhance the Resilience of Coastal Systems (November 2013).

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