Resilient Cities: A CUNY Collaborative Approach for Climate Action

By Emily Blackburne

As climate threats intensify, urban resilience is no longer a lofty ideal—it’s an urgent necessity. The City University of New York (CUNY) has become a collective hub for collaborative climate action. Through initiatives like the CUNY Climate Consortium (C3) and the Center for Sustainable Cities Hunter College, CUNY faculty like Dr. William Solecki work together with CUNY students to research the multifaceted impacts of climate change on urban environments and communities, all starting in New York—a truly urban laboratory.

“Cities provide a really great opportunity for responding to climate change. It’s sort of where the impacts are first felt. It’s where a lot of the infrastructure, the critical infrastructure that society relies on, is focused, but it’s also a place where a lot of the energy use globally takes place,” Solecki says. “So if we can make these places more resilient while reducing greenhouse gas energy emissions, that provides an important step up in terms of opportunities for sustainability.”

Much of Solecki’s current work involves climate change analysis and assessment, including a report for the City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), that he wrote with CUNY City Tech professor, Dr. Reginald Blake. Solecki also invested work in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where he contributed to a significant report, called ‘The Landmark,’ by The New York Times on climate change and risk factors in cities. “The report is designed to be an assessment of what that literature is now saying about where those opportunities lie, particularly with respect to solutions,” Solecki explains. “I’m involved in one of the chapters that’s focused explicitly on solutions and how they play out in different parts of the world and across different cities.”

For instance, as climate events grow more intense, Solecki urges that cities must invest in “co-benefit” infrastructure—or projects that serve multiple functions that go beyond climate resilience.

“We need to focus on those activities that enhance a range of benefits,” he emphasizes. “If you’re doing coastal flood resilience—99% of the time it’s not going to be used for flood protection, so it’s got to be something that the community wants, and really cost-effective.” 

Strategies like green or white reflective rooftops that bring temperatures down, can also reduce air conditioning loading, while letting people who are outside in hot environments feel more comfortable. 

The CUNY Climate Consortium (C3), embodies this solution-oriented ethos by embracing a university-wide discourse, which includes interdisciplinary conversation and collaboration on climate issues. Comprising faculty from various CUNY campuses, along with institutes including the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, CUNY Remote Sensing Earth Institute, and CUNY Institute for Demographic Research, it aims to garner the collective expertise of the CUNY university system, providing a centralized space for discussion, and for developing innovative solutions for climate resiliency. Some of these solutions include educational training workshops, like those on utilizing FloodNet—a flood measuring network utilized by the NYC government and created by CUNY faculty including Dr. Brett Branco.

The Center for Sustainable Cities initiatives often intersect with the efforts of C3. Recognizing the critical role of community engagement in climate resilience, C3 has established the Collaborative Research Workshop (CRW) Series that are designed to harness CUNY’s interdisciplinary expertise. By involving faculty, students, and research partners, the CRW Series fosters the production of actionable climate knowledge, promoting climate solutions alongside community participation.

At Hunter College, the Center for Sustainable Cities serves as a hub for research and educational opportunities on urban sustainability. Through the work of professor Solecki, the center focuses on understanding the dynamics of urban environmental change and developing strategies for resilience and adaptation. One area of research at the center looks at urban heat and heat exposure, as well as flood protection and resilience to extreme rainfall events.

“New York City has been built out over hundreds of years. It’s a coastal location, so that makes it highly vulnerable to things like sea level rise, storm surge, you know, all those things associated with low elevation,” Solecki says. 

In his book, Climate Change and U.S. Cities: Urban Systems, Sectors, and Prospects for Action (NCA Regional Input Reports) Solecki details how some of the effects of climate change, including increased heavy downpours and heat exposure, were addressed in cities and how those past solutions can be used for present and future cases.

His team also works on projects in Jamaica Bay area communities, where the effects of rising seas and heavy rainfall might be altering the local geohydrology leading to increased flooding and land subsidence. The projects are community-centered, as much as they are scientific. “We’re working with local community leaders to develop this survey,” Solecki urges. “We’re soon going to be doing a large broadcast sample across the neighborhood and aim to get around 400 responses.” The project includes boots-on-the-ground engagement.

“We have a team literally knock on doors and leave self-addressed surveys and then follow up with interviews. The goal is to better understand residents’ lived experiences in the area and help them prepare for mounting environmental stressors, engaging them in a consistent dialogue with scientists.”

The CSC also functions to better integrate students and community organizations into long-term, sustained collaborations. “There’s always been a lot of effort to sort of connect universities or higher education entities with communities,” Solecki says. “This would be an opportunity so that they could sort of build on the work of those who have come before.”

While many student research projects have historically been one-offs, Solecki envisions a kind of “baton-passing model,” where undergraduate or graduate work feeds into a lasting archive. “If we do it in a specific location, and if it’s sustained over time, then it becomes that much more valuable as research.” 

The CSC is also involved in the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast, a NOAA funded project, Solecki leads workshops with his team to help communities take advantage of the “post-extreme event window”—or the critical moment after a disaster when public engagement and momentum can shape future policy. “Through kind of a structured dialogue,” he explains, “they can understand what that shared experience has been, and how to promote advanced learning from these extreme events.”

Looking ahead, Solecki urges policymakers and researchers to consider the new environmental baselines cities are facing.

“The city was created with a certain type of environmental baseline. And the environmental baseline of the city is starting to shift.”

Reprinted from https://www.cuny.edu/news/resilient-cities-a-cuny-collaborative-approach-for-climate-action/