New York City (NYC) is experiencing rapidly growing flood risk as sea levels rise. Despite public investments in protection, communities will continue to face residual flood risk. Few residents and neighborhood businesses have begun to adapt to flooding. This study uses a rigorous program evaluation methodology to assess how effectively co-production of knowledge about flood adaptation options motivates residents to adapt relative to a simpler approach that NYC has been pursuing through online communication and neighborhood workshops. The co-production process uses unique primary data from prior surveys to document actual costs of recovery from flooding in the region, to build residents’ capacity to analyze financial costs and benefits of adaptation.

Malgosia Madajewicz is an Associate Research Scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research at the Climate School, Columbia University. She is an economist with research expertise in social vulnerability and adaptation to climate variability and change; evaluation of programs and policies; governance; economic development; inequality and poverty. She is a member of the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast, a NOAA Climate Adaptation Program/RISA team, which collaborates with urban decision makers to develop science-based guidance for adaptation to climate variability and change. She has served on the Community-Based Adaptation working group of the New York City Panel on Climate Change and is currently a member of the Westchester County Climate Taskforce. She holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University.

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