The MEC Regional Assessment examines how three interacting elements of global cities react and respond to climate variability and change. The three elements are: people (i.e., socio-demographic conditions), place (i.e., physical and ecological systems), and pulse (i.e., decision-making and economic activities).

The MEC Regional Assessment focuses on the issues of climate change in a major urban center. Understanding climate impacts in urban areas is becoming increasingly important, since human populations are more concentrated in cities, and the number and size of cities are growing. It is estimated that over half of the world’s population lives in cities or on coasts.

The study area for the MetroEast Coast Assessment covers the 31 counties of the New York City metropolitan region. The area consists of 13,000 square miles, with jurisdictions involving 1,600 cities, town, and villages in the three states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The total regional population is 19.6 million, of which 7.3 live in New York City.

Key to the assessment process is the identification of sectors that are vulnerable to the additional stresses that climate change and increased climate variability will introduce and the potential for adaptation strategies to cope with them. The MEC project focuses on seven sectors: Coasts, Wetlands, Transportation Infrastructure, Water Supply Management, Public Health, Energy, and Land-Use and Infrastructure Decision-Making. Each sector study assesses historical and potential climate impacts through analysis of the current conditions, lessons and evidence derived from past climate variability, scenario predictions, coping strategies, policy recommendations, and knowledge gaps.

In this site you will find a general summary of the report and our findings, abstracts of each sectors’ work, climate data, and lesson plans that incorporate the data that we have used in our research.