Nyack Climate Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Plan

Community-Wide Planning for Ongoing Preparedness and Adaptation

 

The Village of Nyack has adopted a climate vulnerability assessment and adaptation plan that was developed in 2025. We researched future projections for climate hazards in our region, conducted a public survey, and held workshops and meetings with many stakeholders, focusing on impacts of increased heat and heat waves, extreme weather events – including  and increased precipitation and flooding, sea level rise and storm surge, and climate change-related disease. Based on that assessment, we drafted a plan that includes a Vision of how Nyack will rise to the challenge and maintain its resilience in the years ahead, and Action Checklists to guide us in a community effort.

This is a project of the Village of Nyack, funded by a grant from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program

Questions? Contact the Project Coordinator at mbdenker@gmail.com

NYACK CLIMATE ADAPTATION PLAN
Workshop Presentation-Project Overview
O&R Presentation

Nyack Climate Risk and Resilience Workshop March 24, 2025

A presentation and community discussion about Nyack’s adaptation planning project with representatives from O&R, Rockland County Department of Fire & Emergency, Nyack Climate Smart Committee, Upper Nyack Green Committee and other community members.

Public Survey Results

The Project

The climate is changing. Extreme weather events, higher temperatures, rising sea levels, and extreme weather, with more precipitation and flooding, are happening now and are projected to get worse. In creating this plan, we took a detailed look at risks that are likely to impact our community as a result of climate change and developing ways to address them now and in the years to come.

Assessing Vulnerability and Considering Hazards

The first step was to assess how vulnerable the assets in our community are. To what degree are the people, infrastructure, ecosystems, economy, and services in our community susceptible to climate hazards related to climate change, and how well can the these assets cope?

What do we mean by climate hazards? They are natural or human-induced physical events or trends that may cause loss of life, injury, or other health impacts, as well as damage and loss to property, infrastructure, livelihoods, service provision, ecosystems, and environmental resources. We will use local knowledge and reliable, current research about projections for local conditions to ground our understanding of hazards that may affect our community.

Planning for Adaptation and Becoming Resilient

With a better understanding of our vulnerability, we planned ways to adapt. Adaptation refers to the ways we modify or adjust our understanding of our situation in changing circumstances and develop responses accordingly. The Adaptation Plan lays out tools and strategies to help create a resilient community—one that can respond and recover quickly when faced with the climate change challenges as we understand them now, and can continue to assess, adapt, and retain that capacity in the future.


Key Resources

Top Concerns

Extreme Heat and Heat Waves

  • Protecting vulnerable populations

  • Water quality impacts

  • Short term droughts and brush fires

  • Increased demand for air conditioning

  • Electricity demand, supply and affordability

  • Building efficiency upgrades and weatherization 

  • Environmental impacts on natural landscape 

Extreme Weather - Wind, Rain, Snow, Ice, Drought

Threats to public safety

  • Property damage – Basement flooding, flash floods, falling trees, frozen pipes, etc. 

  • Impacts on power, water and wastewater infrastructure

Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge

  • Built Environment  – potential flood damage to properties along the waterfront

  • Waterfront parking lot flooding  –  damage and evacuation needs

  • Boats and moorings  – damage from wind and wave action

  • Natural Environment   – salt water and flooding damage to plantings

Climate Change-Related Illness

  • Heat related illnesses

  • Respiratory diseases related to air quality  – ground level ozone and wildfire smoke 

  • Vector-Borne Diseases – ticks, mosquitoes

  • Potential other emerging diseases

Public Involvement

Steering Committee

Bill Batson Steve Cea Andrew Goodwillie Annie Hekker Alain Leinbach Andy Stewart

The Steering Committee, will meet throughout the process of developing the Resilience Plan to bring a range of community perspectives, help plan and implement outreach for the project and provide comments on the draft plan.

Stakeholder Workshop

A workshop to gather feedback from representatives of key organizations, departments and agencies, Winter 2025

See the list of participants here.

Public Survey

A questionnaire to gather feedback all members of the community about their experience with and concerns related to climate change-related hazards.

Public Workshop

A follow-up event after collecting survey results to share information and encourage discussion with the public. Late March 2025.

Plan Review

The draft Resilience Plan will be made available for public comment. Summer 2025.

Coordinating Lead Author

Marcy Denker, Sustainability Coordinator, Village of Nyack

mbdenker@gmail.com

This is a project of the Village of Nyack, funded by a grant from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program.