Watch: Sea Walls and the Future of Resilience

Sister sites Vox and Curbed teamed up for a video and news article collaboration on the subject of New York City's plans to protect Staten Island from sea level rise and climate change by building a massive barrier.

According to the original article, written by Nathan Kensinger for Curbed, the South Shore of Staten Island Coastal Storm Risk Management Project would build a 5.3-mile long barrier from Fort Wadsworth to Oakwood Beach. "The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is now planning to break ground on this $615 million project in 2020, and expects it to be finished in approximately four years," according to Kensinger.

The project is "staggering in scope," according to Kensinger: "It will include a 4.3-mile seawall with a public promenade built on top, one mile of levees and floodwalls, and more than 180 acres of newly excavated stormwater detention ponds. The project encompasses an area with over 30,000 residents and 7,300 structures, and will protect some of the coastal neighborhoods that suffered the worst damage during Hurricane Sandy, including Arrochar, South Beach, Ocean Breeze, Graham Beach, Midland Beach, New Dorp Beach, and Oakwood Beach."

Kensinger's longread coverage of the project ranges from accounts of the devastation from Superstorm Sandy to the other big sea-level rise resilience projects in the works around New York, such as the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, which would protect a stretch of Manhattan coastline.  The article is also thoroughly supplemented with illustrative photographic examples of damage from Sandy and the locations that are bound to be transformed by future resilience efforts.

The video featured above puts Staten Island's approach to sea-level rise in context of larger thinking about resilience in the face of climate change.