Eve, here. This New York City study examines the impact not only of rising waters due to global warming but also of increased periodic flooding damage for entire neighborhoods, including not just residential and commercial properties, but also critical infrastructure such as subways and electrical substations. After Hurricane Sandy, blackouts began in Manhattan just below 34th Street. And unlike where I live, where power outages are so frequent that elevators have backup generators, I only know of one person, the famous Nathan Tankus, who lived in an apartment complex with backup power.
Importantly, this view of New York City’s future suggests what lies ahead for many other global cities.
Samantha Maldonado is a senior reporter at THE CITY, covering climate, resilience, housing and development. First published on THE CITY on April 1, 2026
Newtown Creek flows between residential buildings straddling the western border of Brooklyn and Queens on March 27, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Looking at the landscape of New York City more than 400 years ago, when swamps, ponds, and rivers crisscrossed a series of islands, can help planners and policymakers better understand the future of urban flooding.
Researchers at the New York Botanical Garden looked at where there used to be water, where there is water now, and where it will be in the coming years thanks to climate change. Those places are called blue zones.
According to a new paper published Wednesday in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, it is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind. Blue Zones cover more than one-fifth of New York’s land area.
“Everyone, including us, is starting to realize that it covers more than 20 percent of the city,” said Eric Sanderson, vice president of urban conservation at the New York Botanical Garden and an author of the study. “There’s absolutely no debate about this combination: places that were wet, places that are wet, and places that will continue to be wet.”
Lucinda Reute, lead author of the paper and manager of urban conservation, data tools and outreach at the New York Botanical Garden, said Blue Zones indicate where addressing flood risk and building resilience is most urgent.
“This could be a pretty good guide to where flooding will occur in the future, as a result of coastal flooding from storm surge and sea level rise, and inland flooding from rainfall,” Reute said. “It will help us plan a little bit better about where we need to make infrastructure changes in the city before a flooding crisis occurs.”
On September 20, 2024, flooding was seen north of the Beach 84 Street Station, north of the elevated A-Train line in the Rockaways. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Approximately 1.2 million people (about 12% of the city’s population) and 11% of its buildings are located in blue zones. With this report, the Arboretum launched a digital tool that displays block-by-block information about historical ecology, current flood vulnerability, and future flood risk.
Both LaGuardia and JFK airports are located in the Blue Zone, atop reclaimed former salt marshes and marine ecosystems. Roughly one-third of the public housing developments housing the poorest New Yorkers are also in blue zones.
Mr. Reute himself lives in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Blue Zone, which historically was a salt marsh through which Gowanus Creek flows. The concept of blue zones struck her when Hurricane Ida flooded her neighborhood.
“My whole block was under water,” she said. “We could see the ponds and rivers and wetlands coming back.”
Notably, the paper notes that parts of the Blue Zone will become uninhabitable in the future, indicating an urgent need to build more housing, transport and other services elsewhere in the city, a conclusion also reached in other studies.
“Water doesn’t matter.”
Blue Zones raises red flags about the scale of the flooding problem New York City faces and will face in the future thanks to climate change. Climate change is expected to result in higher sea levels, more intense storms, and increased rainfall in the coming years.
“This shows you how big a scale this is and allows you to see the city as a landscape,” Reutte said. “We now look at cities through political boundaries. We care about neighborhoods and zip codes, but water doesn’t care about those boundaries.”
Nearly two-thirds of the land area in the Blue Zone is at risk of coastal flooding from storm surges and rising sea levels. Approximately 5% of land in blue zones is at risk of rainfall-induced flooding, and 36% has the potential for both coastal and rainfall-induced flooding.
New homes to be built along Greenpoint waterfront, June 27, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Much of the land in Blue Zones is public, with government agencies owning about two-thirds and the Department of Parks and Recreation specifically overseeing half of it.
“It’s clear that investing in parks saves lives and livelihoods,” said Amy Chester, director of Rebuild by Design, who reviewed the Blue Zones paper. Her organization published an analysis last year showing that large swathes of city parks are at risk of flooding.
The Parks Department acknowledged its role in flood management, although its proposed budget falls short of Mayor Zoran Mamdani’s promises.
“By working together and integrating the latest data and best practices into the planning process, we can build a stronger, more equitable park system that protects both people and nature for generations to come,” park spokesperson Judd Faulkner said in a statement.
DEP spokesman Doug Auer said in a statement that the Blue Zones analysis is a “useful tool in our collaborative stormwater planning efforts,” an effort the agency is working with other agencies to “identify where public lands are available to help with stormwater management and restoration of natural urban drainage corridors.”
In the wake of catastrophic flooding following Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and Hurricane Ida in 2021, many efforts are currently underway to make the region more resilient to flooding, including permanently removing residents from risk, installing more storm drains, and building rain gardens.
“Coincidentally, when we look at the areas that were flooded during Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Ida, we find that they match very well with historical hydrology,” Reute said.
Storm surges from sandy beaches flooded areas that were once beaches and tidal flats, while Ida’s deluge flooded what were ancient ponds, wetlands, and streams.
Residents of Hollis, Queens, who dealt with devastating flooding during Ida and many other storms, learned that their low-lying neighborhood was built on a former pond.
In the Hall neighborhood, which sits below sea level on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, water can linger for days after it rains. The city is currently offering residents there a possible purchase.
In the Bronx, the city is also working to excavate Tibbetts Brook to bring underground waterways above ground, just as it did more than a century ago. This will allow streams to flow again and prevent water from entering sewers and surrounding areas.
But Sanderson said more needs to be done: “I don’t think we have a choice but to scale up. The climate is going to get out of our control and we’re already seeing that.”
“With planning and ecosystems, we can put some of that water back into the sky and some of it back into the ground, without assuming it all has to go through a sewage treatment plant.”
