ABSTRACT
This chapter showcases cross-scale climate planning and design efforts in Philadelphia, PA, to provide insights to low-lying coastal cities suffering from multiple sources of flooding, including sea level rise, storm surge, and riverine/tidal flooding. We first provide an overview of the flooding and sea level rise projections for Philadelphia, their existing and probable impacts, and the city’s climate planning history. We then introduce critical city-scale efforts for current and future flood mitigation, including Philadelphia’s Green City, Clean Water Program, and the Master Plan for Central Delaware. Lastly, we elaborate on the city’s most recent large-scale site planning project, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in the Atlantic Coastal Plain, to illustrate specific design mechanisms for creating resilient ecosystems decreasing flood risks to populations.
