Developers Grappling with Flood Risks: Evaluating Boston’s Climate Resiliency Checklist

Abstract

Ongoing waterfront development in risky areas across the globe raises the continued paradox between resilience initiatives and broader market mechanisms. Even as flood risk increases, existing development patterns do not often adequately account for future flood risk. This research examines using resiliency checklists as a growing regulatory tool to improve predevelopment flood resilience standards. The research employs mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to evaluate how four large-scale developments interacted with Boston’s Climate Resiliency Checklist in the last decade and how its current design criteria influenced design decisions. The checklist’s format, design, and time horizon considerations are evaluated. Increased format and smaller-scale tools are considered.