2026 Chapters (Layout Features)

Building A Better Model for Flood Protection Planning

Gallay, Paul

This chapter examines the need for increased co-production in flood risk reduction policymaking. It offers options for overcoming systemic barriers to effective co-production, which include the failure to provide sufficient time and resources to plan collaboratively, histories of mistrust due to past failure to center community knowledge, and, government’s tendency to frame resilience planning around narrow transactional goals rather than systemic transformation or intersectional problem-solving. The chapter considers and draws lessons from relevant academic literature and field research by the Resilient Coastal Communities Project (RCCP) at the Columbia Climate School, including RCCP’s participation in a wide-ranging civic-academic partnership designed to foster effective co-production in the metro NYC-area flood risk reduction project known as the New York-New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries Study (HATS). It also draws on the author’s government and nonprofit service in the fields of environmental policymaking, advocacy and conservation.

Based on the research and experience described above, this chapter identifies options for new modes of interaction between academia, frontline communities, justice-focused organizations, environmental nonprofits and resilience planning agencies, through which dialogue, accountability, trust building and empowerment can become more integral components in future resilience planning, breaking through systemic barriers to effective collaboration and promoting resilience practice centered on the unique needs of communities facing both flood risks and environmental, social and economic vulnerabilities due to systemic discrimination and disenfranchisement. Finally, this chapter will address the question of how resilience planning can couple co-produced flood risk reduction measures with congruent strategies for addressing other needs, such as job creation, improved shoreline access, habitat restoration and community cohesion and revitalization.