\u201cEverybody was startled, including us, that it\u2019s more than 20% of the city,\u201d said Eric Sanderson, vice president of urban conservation at the New York Botanical Garden and an author of the paper. \u201cThat combination, you can\u2019t really argue with it \u2014 places that were wet, are wet and will be wet in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucinda Royte, lead author of the paper and manager of urban conservation, data tools and outreach at the New York Botanical Garden, said the Blue Zones indicate where it\u2019s most pressing to address flood risks and increase resiliency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be a pretty good guide about where we\u2019ll see flooding in the future as a result of coastal flooding from storm surge and sea level rise, and inland flooding from rainfall events,\u201d Royte said. \u201cIt can help us plan a little bit better about where we need to make some infrastructural changes in the city before a flooding crisis happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Flooding](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/092024_rockaway_flooding_1.jpg\")
Flooding was visible north of the Beach 84th Street station north of the A train elevated tracks in the Rockaways, Sept. 20, 2024. Credit: Alex Krales\/THE CITY<\/p>\n
About 1.2 million people (about 12% of the city\u2019s population) and 11% of buildings are in Blue Zones. With the report, the Botanical Garden launched a digital tool<\/a> that shows block-by-block information about historical ecology, current flood vulnerability and future flood risks.<\/p>\n Both LaGuardia Airport and JFK Airport are located in Blue Zones, on former salt marshes and marine ecosystems that were filled in. About a third of public housing developments, home to some of the poorest New Yorkers, are in Blue Zones, too.<\/p>\n Royte herself lives in a Blue Zone: Gowanus, Brooklyn, which was historically a salt marsh with Gowanus Creek flowing through. The concept of Blue Zones hit home for her when Hurricane Ida brought floodwaters<\/a> to her neighborhood.<\/p>\n \u201cMy entire block was underwater,\u201d she said. \u201cI saw ponds and streams and wetlands return.\u201d<\/p>\n Notably, the paper notes that some of the Blue Zones will become inhabitable in the future, which points to the urgent need to build more housing, transit and other services elsewhere in the city \u2014 a conclusion other studies<\/a> have made.<\/p>\n \u2018Water Doesn\u2019t Care\u2019<\/p>\n Blue Zones raise a red flag about the scale of the flood problem New York City faces, and will face, thanks to climate change<\/a>, which promises to bring higher seas, more intense storms and more rainfall in the coming years.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt shows how large scale this is and it lets you look at the city as a landscape,\u201d Royte said. \u201cWe currently view the city through its political boundaries. We care about neighborhoods and zip codes, but water doesn\u2019t care about those boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the Blue Zones, nearly two-thirds of the land area is at risk of coastal flooding from storm surge and sea level rise. About 5% of the Blue Zone land is at risk of flooding from rainfall, and 36% could see both coastal and rainfall flooding.<\/p>\n Much of the land in the Blue Zones is public, with government entities owning about two-thirds and the Department of Parks and Recreation specifically overseeing half of that.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so obvious that investing in parks will save lives and livelihoods,\u201d said Amy Chester, director of Rebuild By Design, who reviewed the Blue Zones paper. Her organization last year released an analysis<\/a> showing a majority of city parks will be at risk of flooding.<\/p>\n The Parks Department \u2014 whose proposed budget falls short<\/a> of what Mayor Zohran Mamdani had promised \u2014 acknowledged its role in flood management.<\/p>\n \u201cBy working together and integrating the latest data and best practices into our planning process, we can create a stronger, more equitable park system that protects both people and nature for generations to come,\u201d Parks spokesperson Judd Faulkner said in a statement.<\/p>\n In a statement, DEP spokesperson Doug Auer called the Blue Zones analysis \u201ca useful tool in our collaborative stormwater planning efforts,\u201d and pointed to work the agency is doing with other agencies to \u201cidentify where public lands can serve double duty for stormwater management and help restore natural urban drainage corridors.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the initiatives to make neighborhoods more resilient to flooding \u2014 including permanently moving people away from risks, adding storm drains and building rain gardens \u2014 are in the works, prompted by disastrous flooding after 2012\u2019s Hurricane Sandy and 2021\u2019s Hurricane Ida.<\/p>\n \u201cWe found, coincidentally, when you look at places that flooded during Hurricane Sandy or Hurricane Ida, they line up pretty closely with historical hydrology,\u201d Royte said.<\/p>\n The storm surge of Sandy flooded areas that had been beaches and tidal marshes, while Ida\u2019s deluge flooded places that had been ancient ponds, wetlands and streams.\u00a0<\/p>\n Residents of Hollis, Queens, dealt with devastating flooding during Ida as well as during many other rainstorms<\/a>, and learned their lowlying neighborhood was built atop a former pond.<\/p>\n The Hole, a neighborhood on the border of Queens and Brooklyn that sits below sea level<\/a>, has continuously taken on water that can remain days after it rains. The city is now offering possible buyouts<\/a> to residents there.<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/062724_residential_construction_1.jpg\")
New residential units go up along the Greenpoint waterfront, June 27, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n