The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the agency of the municipal government of New York City that manages the city’s water supply, including drinking water and wastewater. The agency also works to manage air, noise, and hazardous materials pollution. It’s providing approximately 1 billion gallons of high-quality drinking water each day to nearly 10 million residents, including 8.8 million in New York City. The water is delivered from a watershed that extends more than 125 miles from the city, comprising 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes. Approximately 7,000 miles of water mains, tunnels and aqueducts bring water to homes and businesses throughout the five boroughs, and 7,500 miles of sewer lines and 96 pump stations take wastewater to 14 in-city treatment plants.
In addition to maintaining NYC’s high-water quality, DEP has made significant contributions to green infrastructure and coordinated cyclical strategic plan releases to better manage stormwater and flooding.
As climate change exacerbates these challenges, DEP has explored monitoring systems to compare rainfall data across NYC’s communities and provide the greatest insight into NYC’s water future. This is exemplified by the launch of FloodNet (https://www.floodnet.nyc/) , which was launched in 2020, to bring together innovative sources of information on street flooding impacts in neighborhoods most vulnerable to flooding from high tides, storm surge, and stormwater runoff.
Challenge: How to operationalize FloodNet to best communicate flooding danger.
The development of FloodNet has provided DEP with a better understanding of the frequency, severity, and impact of flooding in NYC’s boroughs and neighborhoods.
The goal of this workshop would be to understand how we can leverage these data insights to the benefit of communities vulnerable to flooding. This would include figuring out new ways to communicate preemptive warnings, integrating the system with apps to send an alert once a threshold is reached (inches of rain/hr OR flood level height), and identifying options to reach families that are low-income, speak languages other than English and/or lack smartphones (accessibility). Furthermore, it’s goal is to scope for other interventions that could work.
The field visit will take place on Tuesday March 21 starting at 9:00 am, followed by the workshop. Interactive elements contributing to the workshop will already take place during the field visits.
Details for the workshop will be shared after registration is complete.
This event is closed to the public.