Companion Case Studies: Boston Area Assessment
The purpose of the Climate’s Long Term Impacts on Metro Boston (CLIMB) project was to help local and regional decision makers understand the consequences of climate change on infrastructure within 20-miles of Boston, where land use ranges from urban to farms and open space. Major findings include:
- Energy use: Lags to expand capacity in the capital-intensive energy supply industry imply the need for near-term planning to accommodate the climate-induced increase in demand for energy (mostly for air conditioning). Planting urban shade trees and installing reflective roofs can help moderate near-term warming impacts.
- Sea-level rise: Expensive structural protection could be cost-effective in highly developed areas. In less developed or environmentally sensitive areas, nonstructural methods are less costly and allow more flexibility for responding to future uncertainties.
- River flooding: No action would lead to twice as many properties being flooded and twice the damage costs, particularly in the western suburbs. These costs justify universal flood-proofing in floodplains.
- Transportation: More frequent extreme weather would flood roads and increase traffic delays, but these costs are small compared with the property damages from increased flooding.
- Water supply: Local systems can cope with water demand increases caused by climate and population growth if the regional MWRA system agrees to supplement local supplies; currently MWRA is not obligated to do so. Local systems can implement strategies to manage demand or increase supply, but these typically require long lead times.
- Public health: The only health effect studied was heat-stress mortality, which might increase until about 2010. Then it would decline because of adaptive strategies such as increased air conditioning, planting of trees, use of more reflective building materials, and development patterns that moderate the increase in energy demand.
- Case studies: CLIMB found climate change likely to impose additional costs to maintain water quality because of high costs for extra nonpoint source pollution management. Although it is uncertain how climate change will affect wind, increased windiness could reduce the lifespan of tall buildings. Installing riprap could decrease damage to bridges caused by increased flooding.
For more information see: Boston Area Assessment