Background Con Edison’s Water Street Network in Brooklyn is among its oldest electrical distribution networks. It has become stressed by the increasing electrical demands of robust real estate development and is increasingly impacted by extreme weather and coastal flooding events. To bolster the network’s reliability and resiliency, a private micro-utility, with approval from the New … Read more
Challenge The Town of Amherst has set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets and needs to develop additional renewable energy generation to meet those targets. Given the need to develop solar and protect open space, the Town wanted to better understand community sentiment surrounding solar development, systematically understand solar feasibility town-wide, and produce estimates of current … Read more
Challenge A solar developer with significant success developing rooftop solar arrays in the New Jersey Community Solar Program sought GZA’s assistance to identify potentially suitable landfills, brownfields, or other known contaminated sites to expand into ground-mounted solar arrays. With over 13,500 potential sites in New Jersey, the developer knew they needed an automated way to … Read more
L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, established a global sustainability initiative, “L’Oréal for the Future,” which strives for 100% of their industrial facilities to document measurable increases in biodiversity within their local environment by 2030. Challenge Increases in biodiversity can only truly be measured against a baseline of the current physical landscape and bio-ecologic attributes. … Read more
The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) received funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Resiliency Grant Program to increase coastal resilience and reduce risk to people, infrastructure and natural resources in coastal communities by building and monitoring nature-based coastal infrastructure throughout New England. TNC raised … Read more
Challenge Electric substation facilities are among the most critical elements to our nation’s power infrastructure. Recent flood impacts and forecasts of more frequent severe weather events prompted one long-standing major utility client to request GZA’s assistance in creating a Flood Hardening Program to improve the flood resiliency of 50+ existing inland and coastal facilities in … Read more
Challenge The Long Wharf area of New Haven, located within FEMA VE and AE high risk flood hazard zones, is highly vulnerable to coastal flooding. It has historically experienced severe flooding and flood damage from hurricanes and extreme weather events dating to the Hurricane of 1938 and more recently during Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy. … Read more
Challenge GZA was selected to advance the City of Northampton’s Climate Resiliency and Regeneration Plan by providing conceptual to final construction-ready design of green infrastructure solutions to improve flood control and stormwater management during extreme weather events. Solution GZA is collaborating with the City of Northampton’s Office of Planning & Sustainability and Department of Public … Read more
