Rutgers University researchers will lead several components of a $72.5 million federal initiative to fortify New Jersey’s coast against climate change and extreme weather events.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded the grant to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for the Building a Climate Ready New Jersey program. The five-year initiative seeks to enhance climate resilience across the state’s 16 coastal counties — all with tidal waterways — through projects ranging from flood mitigation to workforce development training and student education.
Rutgers will receive about $16 million of the total grant to lead several program components, according to Lisa Auermuller, administrative director of Rutgers’ Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub.
In addition to building physical resilience, the funding will develop the next generation of climate resilience experts by providing hands-on experience for Rutgers graduate and undergraduate students across these projects.
“Rutgers is woven throughout the entire grant, touching all stages of the project,” Auermuller said. “This grant establishes an official pipeline to implement projects that have completed planning and design.”
Christopher Obropta, Extension Specialist in Water Resources with Rutgers Cooperative Extension and a professor with the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, will lead many "shovel-ready" green infrastructure projects. His team will install these resilience strategies in urban communities to manage stormwater and mitigate flooding.
“Of the $9.5 million that are coming to my group, about $7 million will go to building physical projects designed to manage water, and most of the rest will go to educational programs that train people from those communities to build and maintain such projects,” Obropta said. “Our focus is on Perth Amboy, Newark, and Paterson.”
These cities have combined sewer systems where stormwater and sewage flow through the same pipes. These systems often overflow during heavy rainfall, releasing untreated sewage into local waterways and streets.
“Our goal is to implement systems that capture rainwater before it enters the combined system and causes overflows,” Obropta said. “We’re separating these waters, holding and treating the rainwater, then allowing it to percolate slowly into the ground.”
The projects will feature rain gardens built into curb bump-outs and vacant lots as well as pervious pavement that allows water to seep into underground storage systems.
Rain gardens are green spaces built three to 12 inches below their surroundings creating temporary ponds when storms rage and runoff water fill them. They feature plants that can withstand full submersion for six to 12 hours as it takes for water seepage into the ground.
A 200-square-foot rain garden can manage 30,000 gallons of stormwater per year," Obropta said," so a network of dozens (or hundreds) could greatly reduce flooding throughout entire towns."
Permeable parking lots tend larger managing even more water but cost several times more than regular parking lots requiring semiannual maintenance." It’s definitely an investment," Obropta said." But when you consider potential prevention costly flooding damage they can save money overall."
Obropta emphasized solutions managing stormwater providing additional benefits such as urban greening supporting pollinators reducing heat island effects ensuring long-term sustainability helping urban economies partnering Kean University developing green infrastructure certification program focused training local residents build maintain boosting local economy instead outsourcing work
Education outreach form another cornerstone Rutgers involvement initiative overseeing chunk project includes K-12 teacher training expanding use crowdsourced coastal monitoring app called MyCoast NJ
“New Jersey leads nation here,” Auermuller said.“It’s first state mandate climate education school curricula leveraging requirement integrating real-world lessons about local climate impacts solutions classrooms across state.”
Other Rutgers-led projects include:
- Updating coastal restoration project repository tool roughly $1.3 million effort led by Rick Lathrop director Center Remote Sensing Spatial Analysis
- Enhancing New Jersey Resilience Toolkit municipal-level planning $2 million project headed Lucas Marxen Bloustein School Planning Public Policy
