Climate Ready Boston To Focus On Fort Point Channel & Harbor

South Boston is expected to experience more coastal and stormwater flooding due to climate change. Remember the flooding and ground water rise from King Tides over the past two years?

The City of Boston is exploring solutions to decrease these risks as part of the Climate Ready South Boston initiative.

Add your on-the-ground perspective to the neighborhood’s resiliency

by completing this community survey.

In 2016, Climate Ready Boston released a comprehensive report of risks and protection strategies for a climate-impacted city like Boston. Last weekend, the City released study results and recommendations for East Boston and Charlestown. The City kicked off Climate Ready South Boston on October 4, 2017.

South Boston faces increased climate risks going forward. From now to 2050, nearly a quarter of South Boston’s land area will be exposed to a 1 percent annual chance of coastal flooding event, with some areas along the Fort Point Channel exposed to even higher probability events. Some streets and highways are also expected to be exposed to low-probability coastal flooding in the near-term, with those likelihoods going up as time goes on. Protecting South Boston also protects the connected neighborhoods of South End, Roxbury, and Dorchester from future flooding risks.

The City is committed to finding both short- and long-term solutions to coastal flooding and other impacts from sea level rise, and currently studying the issue to explore potential ways to minimize or eliminate flooding challenges, with a focus on key floodwater entry points into the neighborhood.

For the South Boston Waterfront the flood entry points are: along the edge of the district, including flooding from Fort Point Channel, Boston Harbor, and the Reserve Channel. The low-lying nature of the South Boston Waterfront likely requires flood protection connections to high ground across Fort Point Channel. Potential flood protection solutions include a floodgate aimed at preventing storm surge from flowing into the South Boston Waterfront from Fort Point Channel. The gate could be placed at a number of locations, including the Northern Avenue Bridge, Seaport Boulevard Bridge, Congress Street Bridge, or Summer Street Bridge. In addition to a gate across Fort Point Channel, flood protection solutions would require either a barrier system to connect to high ground south of West Broadway, perimeter protection near the Reserve Channel, or a gate across the Reserve Channel. (source: Climate Ready Boston report)

You can read more about neighborhood climate risk and resilience in the South Boston section of the Climate Ready Boston report here.

Take the survey and add your voice to this critical discussion about how to prepare Fort Point and the whole city for a more resilient future. Sign up for our Greenovate email list to stay up-to-date on details for the December community open house. Greenovate will also be a featured speaker speaker January 30, 2018 Fort Point Neighborhood Gathering hosted by the Fort Point Neighborhood Association.

originally published 11.1.17