Kleinfelder was selected as a regional lead consultant for the Resilient Long Beach Island (RLBI) project by NJDEP and the Bureau of Climate Resilience Planning (BCRP). As part of a two-phase project, the regional team is tasked with developing and implementing solutions that bolster resilience and communities’ adaptive capacity in advance of future storms.

Inclusive and Transparent Community Engagement Strategy

Phase 1 of the project began with objective-setting workshops with each of the communities (in-person and virtual events), development of a comprehensive Planning Context Report and web-based Storymap, and a screening-level Risk & Vulnerability assessment. A wide range of stakeholders were brought together including year-round and seasonal property owners, vulnerable populations, and local business owners, as well as a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).

Hydrologic and Hydraulic Modeling

Kleinfelder oversaw the refinement of a regional hydrologic and hydraulic (H&H) model that includes major stormwater infrastructure at the subcatchment scale, allowing for detailed analysis of excess precipitation events. The refined model can be used to assess the potential efficacy of green-blue infrastructure adaptations for events such as two-hour ‘cloudburst’ events, which today generate localized flash flooding. In total, Kleinfelder is assessing critical flood elevations at over 50 individual facilities, preparing HAZUS impact modeling, and analyzing island-wide flood extents and depths for over a dozen unique flood scenarios, factoring: projected increases in precipitation intensity, precipitation-based (piped infrastructure) flooding, coastal storms and storm surge, and tidal/sea level rise flooding in 2030, 2050, and 2070.

Project Results

The planning team engaged with numerous stakeholder groups to gain an understanding of their climate impact concerns and resilience interests and to build consensus for resilience scenarios and actions. The planning team focused on developing critical policy and regulatory changes required to implement any selected projects, as well as the preparation of an action matrix to create a “roadmap” for resilience.

Project Details

Location:
Long Beach Island, NJ

Owner:
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP)