A Climate Resilient Park

in the North End

The red line shows areas of the park designed to withstand sea level rise, with park features built higher to protect them and ensure longevity.

Courtesy of Weston & Sampson

Climate Ready Boston is the city’s program to prepare for rising seas, stronger coastal storms, hotter days, and heavier rainfall due to climate change. One strategy is to redesign waterfront parks–like this one–so they can be enjoyed by residents and protect neighborhoods from these changes.

The 2020 plan for this park was the first to put in place Boston’s new climate resiliency standards. To limit the impact of coastal storms, the Harborwalk, built above the existing seawall, can handle occasional flooding. A second seawall protects park amenities and provides seating with waterfront views. Also play areas have been raised high enough to protect them, as well as nearby homes and businesses, from most severe floods until about 2050.

To limit the impact of heavier rainfall, an upgraded stormwater drainage system was installed. Sloped walking paths direct water away from the neighborhood, across the park, and into the harbor. And native plantings near the water’s edge tolerate salt and standing water. These improvements ensure the park can serve its dual roles for decades to come.

Sea levels graph

Scientists agree global warming threatens our planet. If we reduce carbon emissions, however, we can limit sea-level rise by the year 2100 to two feet or less.

Created by Sheila J. Frazier, with data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Flooding at Langone and Puopolo parks

Before the park was renovated, two storms in March 2018 coincided with very high “King Tides,” causing significant flooding along Boston’s waterfront, including the northwest section of this park. The city’s initiatives to address climate change took on new urgency.

Courtesy of Weston & Sampson

Cantilevered Harborwalk

Sea water can rise and fall beneath the cantilevered Harborwalk.

Courtesy of Weston & Sampson

Sign Location

More …

Community activists. Colonial law. Political will. New state regulations. The combination created the 43-mile Boston Harborwalk–a public path, stretching from Logan Airport through seven neighborhoods to the Neponset River. In 1978, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) sought to improve public access to the waterfront. They succeeded by integrating early Colonial laws into new state regulations.

In the decades that followed, community activists, city and state government, and developers of shoreline projects have worked together to ensure the Harborwalk is always constructed along the waterfront. Some sites also provide public amenities–bathrooms, meeting places, kayak launches,
etc. The result is a fabulous path welcoming residents and visitors to our vibrant clean harbor.

Early Colonial laws established public right of access along tidelands to protect citizens’ rights to fish, hunt, and navigate at sea and along the shorefront. These laws go back even further: They stem from Roman law, which was incorporated into English law and brought over to Massachusetts by English
settlers. Then, in the 1640s, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws permitting private docks in the intertidal area (between low and high tide) as long as public access was retained. Almost all of Boston’s waterfront is filled land that was once the intertidal area. This, together with the centuries-old legal right of access, served as the underpinnings for the 1978 CZM regulations.

Resources

Acknowledgments

  • Our gratitude to the Perkins School for the Blind and David W. Cook for their partnership in creating the audio files.
  • Thank you to the Boston Marine Society for funding the Spanish and Italian translations as well as the recording of this sign.