Integrating ecology into the built environment for climate resilience
By Olivia Merritt, Undergraduate at North Carolina State University
Sometimes, protecting the built environment means bringing nature back into it.
SCAPE is a landscape architecture studio in New York City and New Orleans. It is an ecologically-minded studio that designs projects protecting and integrating natural landscapes with human landscapes. The studio has projects ranging from a greenway plan for the Chattahoochee River to connect to metropolitan Atlanta to a water filtration system disguised as a beautiful plaza in New York City.
The Living Breakwaters Project
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy severely damaged the south shore of Staten Island, particularly a neighborhood called Tottenville. The hurricane caused a lot of erosion, and that threat remains high as sea levels rise. In some areas the erosion rate is 1 foot per year lost to the sea. To mitigate the loss of land from Tottenville, SCAPE designed a plan: living offshore breakwaters. This project won the Rebuild By Design competition in 2014, a competition that funded innovative projects in response to Hurricane Sandy.
The Living Breakwaters project comprises several different parts. The first is ten partially submerged reef structures that will be built adjacent to the south shore of Tottenville. These structures will reduce the flood risk in Tottenville by breaking up waves as they approach the shore. The second component is an oyster nursery, where oysters will be cultivated and later become part of the living breakwater structures. The third component is restoring the dunes and vegetation on the Tottenville shore. Combined with the breakwaters, the restored shoreline will protect the neighborhood of Tottenville.
The reef structures will be made of layers of stone and bio-enhancing concrete. Making concrete is a very energy-intensive process and results in a lot of waste called cement kiln dust. Cement kiln dust is actually used in bio-cement; it is mixed with sand particles to create a concrete. Not only does bio-cement use a waste product from the concrete industry, but the cement is textured in a way that promotes marine organism growth.
Finally, the Living Breakwaters project strives to educate the surrounding public. There are two different hubs that serve as beach access points and also house educational programs. The Billion Oyster Project that is cultivating oysters for the living reefs has taught 6th to 8th graders in Tottenville about coastal restoration, using the Living Breakwaters project as a close-to-home example. With the educational component of the project, kids and adults alike are being inspired by an influential issue within their community.
Flooding in the Triangle
Though the Triangle isn’t near the ocean, flooding is a major issue due to the fact that much of the Triangle has been developed in floodplains and inland flooding remains a major risk from climate change for much of North Carolina. The Triangle could use SCAPE’s innovative reef design as inspiration to implement more ecologically-minded solutions to flooding. For example, creating a bigger buffer of native plants along rivers could reduce flood risk. Restoring wetlands and natural flows of rivers and streams are two other ways to holistically decrease flood risk and work with the environment as opposed to against it.
Improving the resilience of the Triangle’s built environment can mean stepping back. If flooding is causing damage to buildings requiring money and resources to fix, the root issue to solve is flooding. Using money to integrate ecology into urban planning would not only reduce the waste that occurs with damaged buildings, but it would ultimately save cities money. So let’s take a leaf out of SCAPE’s book and start designing preventative measures in an environmentally thoughtful way.
