COPRI Technical Lecture: Climate Resiliency at the Port Authority of NY&NJ

The ASCE Met Section COPRI chapter presents its spring technical lecture:

Speaker: Sarah Colasurdo - Program Manager of Climate Resilience, PANYNJ

This lecture will provide an overview of the Climate Resilience program at the Port Authority including: a history of major impacts to date and the policy and program efforts underway to mitigate climate risks going forward. From Superstorm Sandy to Hurricane Ida, we will walk through the major storm events, their impacts, and the lessons learned. With this history, we will also explain our science-based approach to manage climate risks and the cost-effective design solutions that are incorporated into Engineering projects.

In addition, this lecture will provide an overview of the Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) to demonstrate how the Port Authority is preparing strategic investments to mitigate future impacts. The CRA identifies critical assets, consequences of inaction, and strategic investment in the future. You will gain an overview of the program structure, the process for gathering data, the analytical methodology, and the process for evaluating priority actions.

Sarah Colasurdo is the Program Manager of Climate Resilience in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s Engineering Department where she and her team maintain and implement the Climate Resilience Guidelines on all Port Authority projects (airports, bridges, tunnels, bus terminals, ports, and the World Trade Center site) and high-impact special initiatives, such as airport redevelopment programs. Sarah also manages the Climate Risk Assessment program, an agency-wide, asset-based investigation of risk today through the end of the century. Prior to her tenure at the Port Authority, she conducted disaster recovery and resilience planning in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama, before returning home to New Jersey to support recovery after Superstorm Sandy. Sarah holds a bachelor's degree in geosciences and a mater's in urban and regional planning.

Image courtesty of PANYNJ

Host or Publisher ASCE Met Section COPRI Chapter