Urban coastal flood mitigation strategies for the city of Hoboken & Jersey City, New Jersey

Coastal cities are undeniably vulnerable to climate change. Coastal storms combining with sea level rise have increased the risk of flooding and storm surge damage in coastal communities. The communities of the City of Hoboken and Jersey City are low-lying areas along the Hudson River waterfront and the Newark Bay/Hackensack River with little or no relief. Flooding in these areas is a result of intense precipitation and runoff, tides and/or storm surges, or a combination of all of them. During Super-storm Sandy these communities experienced severe flooding and flood-related damage as a result of the storm surge. Following the damage that was created on these communities by flooding from Sandy, this research was initiated in order to develop comprehensive strategies to make Hoboken and Jersey City more resilient to flooding. Commonly used flood measures like storage, surge barrier, conveyance, diversion, pumping, rainfall interception, etc. are examined, and the research is focused on their different combination to address different levels of flood risk at different scales. Apart from the commonly used measures and their combination and placement, this research is expanded to evaluate a new approach in drainage management in densely populated areas. The main concept of a new flood measures for low-lying areas, namely, “Rainwater Driven Pump” (Guo Q. , Li, Kennish, Psuty, Lathrop, & Trimble, 2014), is investigated. Initial evaluations indicate their good potential in terms of availability of rainwater energy from the building tops and ground surfaces while estimating energy losses along the flow pathways.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Eleni Athanasopoulo