Just the Facts
It's time to get real, New Jersey. The Resilient Environments and Landscapes (REAL) amendments will help residents and businesses mitigate the destructive impacts of climate change.
The following information, scientific reports, and other research will help you learn more about REAL and New Jersey's climate-related challenges.
REAL will:
Ensure that structures are built to withstand the destructive impacts of climate change.
Apply only to new development, redevelopment, and substantial improvements to buildings.
Focus on cost-effective solutions, best practices, current technology, and advanced materials.
Attract investments through sustainable development, and create jobs in cutting-edge industries.
Create more equitable access to green spaces and empower local communities through inclusive decision-making.
Support better public health, enhance quality of life, and increase property values.
Save residents and businesses billions of dollars in property damage, lost wages and income, infrastructure replacement, and healthcare costs.
REAL will NOT:
Create “no build” zones.
Apply to existing development.
Require structure elevation when it is impracticable.
Crush economic development OR stifle job creation.
Compromise the needs of, or limit opportunities for, disadvantaged and overburdened communities.
Put the environment ahead of people.
Put people ahead of profits.
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REPORTS
State of the Climate:
New Jersey 2022
The New Jersey State of the Climate Report summarizes annually updated scientific information on climate trends and projections that can be used by state and local decision-makers, researchers, hazard planning and climate resilience professionals, and residents. The New Jersey State of the Climate Report is developed by Rutgers University through its hosting of the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center. The report provides end users with the information they need to monitor changing climate conditions to prepare for future impacts.
New Jersey's Rising Coastal Risk
New Jersey’s coast plays a vital role in the state’s economy and its residents’ way of life. While these communities have a long history of weathering storms and flooding, sea level rise and changes in hurricane activity create new risks. This report quantifies the impact of changes in both hazards over the past four decades on flood and wind exposure and expected damage at the individual county level, and explores how New Jersey coastal risk will evolve in the years ahead as the climate changes.
Creating Flood-Resilient Landscapes: A Primer for New Jersey Communities
Without ample natural ecosystems to absorb rainfall and runoff, even just a few inches of rain can cause flooding in many New Jersey communities. Further, future rain events and coastal storms are predicted to increase in frequency and severity, leading to the potential for lasting, reverberating impacts on entire
neighborhoods, landscapes, and natural resources.
These challenges can be overcome through an ecological centered landscape resilience approach that combines principles of engineering, ecology, and landscape architecture to transforms these areas into public assets.
New Jersey's Rising Seas and Changing Coastal Storms
Report of the 2019 Science and Technology Advisory Panel
In 2016 Rutgers University convened a New Jersey Science and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) on Sea-Level Rise and Changing Coastal Storms to synthesize for practitioners the most recent climate science needed to inform efforts to increase the resilience of New Jersey’s people, places, and assets (including infrastructure, communities and natural resources) to regional sea-level rise (SLR), changing coastal storms and the resulting flood risk.
Economic Impacts of Climate Change in New Jersey
A Review and Assessment Conducted by the Center for Integrative Environmental Research, University of Maryland
The debate to date has primarily focused on the perceived costs of alternative solutions, yet there can also be significant costs of inaction. Climate change will affect our water, energy, transportation, and public health systems, as well as state economies as climate change impact a wide range of important economic sectors from agriculture to manufacturing to tourism. This report, part of a series of state studies, highlights the economic impacts of climate change in New Jersey and provides examples of additional ripple effects such as reduced spending in other sectors and resulting losses of jobs, wages, and even tax revenues.
OTHER RESEARCH
Sea Level Rise in New Jersey
Projections and Impacts
Sea level rise poses a threat to people and property in coastal areas around the world and is especially acute in New Jersey. Sea level at the Jersey Shore has risen about 18 inches since the early 1900s, more than twice the global mean of about 8 inches. Even more concerning, the rate of sea level rise is accelerating.
Hurricane Ida
National Hurricane Center Tropical Storm Report
Ida was a category 4 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) that caused catastrophic damage when it made landfall in southeastern Louisiana. It also made landfall in western Cuba as a category 1 hurricane. Ida later became an extratropical low that caused heavy rain and deadly flooding in the northeastern United States.
Hurricane Sandy
National Hurricane Center Tropical Storm Report
Because of its tremendous size, however, Sandy drove a catastrophic storm surge into the New Jersey and New York coastlines. Preliminary U.S. damage estimates are near $50 billion, making Sandy the second-costliest cyclone to hit the United States since 1900.