Skip to main content

Innovation for Impact Fund

Assessing Progress and Barriers to Ecological Restoration of State Property Buyout Programs
Return to Innovation for Impact Fund

2020: Assessing Progress and Barriers to Ecological Restoration of State Property Buyout Programs (TNC)

Nationwide, more than 13 million homes are located in floodplains and 2.5 million properties will likely be chronically inundated by 2100. After each disaster, pundits debate whether communities should “give parcels back to Mother Nature,” as Governor Cuomo said after Hurricane Sandy. Over the last decade, several states have developed buyout programs, but no studies have systematically compared and analyzed them. This team will study programs in five states (New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, and Washington) that have created buyout programs which are promising from community and ecological health perspectives. They will then work with state program officers, TNC staff, and Cornell faculty and students to jointly identify specific research goals, concerns, data needs, case study sites, and research outputs, enhancing the likelihood of success.
Cornell Investigators: Linda Shi, City and Regional Planning; Amelia Greiner Safi, Master of Public Health Program; Rebecca Morgenstern-Brenner Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, Jamie Vanucchi, Landscape Architecture
TNC Investigators: Anna Brown, TNC North America Climate Adaptation Lead; Christine Shepard, TNC Director of Science; Marci Bortman, NY Director of Climate Adaptation

Sign up for our newsletter:

Subscribe