New York City 2100: Environmental justice implications of future scenarios for addressing extreme heat

Abstract

Climate-driven hazards, such as extreme heat or precipitation, are threatening the current and future livability of New York City (NYC) and disproportionately affecting low-income communities and communities of color. To envision future climate resilience, government stakeholders and researchers co-produced future scenarios for 2100 in response to climate hazards for NYC during participatory workshops in Fall 2021. A commonly co-produced strategy included urban green infrastructure (UGI) because of its potential to retain runoff and provide cooling benefits. We ask, what are the potential environmental justice implications of ecosystem services provisioned from UGI distribution in the co-produced NYC future scenario compared to a business-as-usual future scenario? To analyze potential outcomes and tradeoffs, we integrated spatially-explicit UGI strategies into simulated land use and cover models. We then assessed two ecosystem services (flood and heat mitigation) using the spatially-explicit tool Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST). We explored potential environmental justice implications by comparing the provision of ecosystem services to sociodemographic indicators within census block groups between scenarios. Presently, ecosystem services are disproportionately lower for communities of color, including predominantly Asian, Black/African-American, and Hispanic/Latino communities. In future scenarios we found ecosystem service provision will decrease within these communities under business-as-usual land development. The future scenario co-produced for extreme heat resilience, however, shows an increase in overall provisioning across NYC, including in neighborhoods with a high proportion of people of color. Our results show that co-produced future scenarios can be used to inform strategic future planning for inclusive adaptation decisions to improve future climate resilience and justice.