2020: Assessing Progress and Barriers to Ecological Restoration of State Property Buyout Programs (The Nature Conservancy)
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 that 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: Linda Shi (Cornell AAP/City and Regional Planning), Amelia Greiner Safi (Master of Public Health Program), Rebecca Morgenstern-Brenner (Brooks School), Jamie Vanucchi (Cornell CALS/Landscape Architecture)
TNC: Anna Brown (North America Climate Adaptation Lead), Christine Shepard (Director of Science), Marci Bortman (NY Director of Climate Adaptation)