JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Heavy rain impacted areas around Jacksonville Wednesday that are familiar with flooding. But the city’s resiliency office said new neighborhoods could be vulnerable in years to come if development plans don’t change.
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Anne Coglianese, the city’s first-ever chief resiliency officer, warned problems experienced this week could only get worse with climate change over the next 50 years.
She helped release a new resiliency study last year that shows about 23,000 city assets are currently at risk of flooding, but that could increase to 58,000 by 2070.
She said it shows why the city needs to make a shift in where and how it develops with the future population expected to more than double to 1.6 million by then.
“As we make long-range plans, we need to make sure we aren’t inadvertently missing an area that’s going to become an issue in the future,” she said.
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According to the resiliency study, areas around San Marco, Murray Hill, and Riverside for example are all vulnerable to flooding during heavy rainfall. However the plan shows increased risks under future flooding scenarios in neighborhoods including Moncrief, Panama Park, and Paxon.
“This data will help us understand the complexity and make sure we’re not building in a place that might actually see a lot of flooding causing chronic issues,” she explained.
According to the study, if the city continues development the same way it is currently, Jacksonville could see up to three times as many people living in areas vulnerable to flooding, from nearly 140,000 now to more than 430,000 people.v
Read: Jacksonville resiliency strategy: More residents impacted by flooding if development doesn’t change
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