A Planet Possible special report from New York City

28 April 2026

How the Big Apple is coping with the challenges of climate change, water quality and increasing urbanisation

In March, Planet Possible host Niki Roach and producer Andy Taylor travelled to New York City to receive the Audience Choice Award for Best Science Podcast at the NYC Podcast Awards 2026. While they were they there, Niki met Vincent Lee, a senior project lead at Arup who specialises in both integrated water management and climate resilience, to find out how you manage sustainable water infrastructure and climate resilience in such a densely populated area.

She also talked to Sarah Galst, a vice president at the environmental engineering consultancy Hazen and Sawyer, about the multi-decade project to improve New York City’s water quality.

If you’d like to listen along, you can find the podcast episode here, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favourite platform. Follow the podcast to stay updated on our weekly deep dives into pressing environmental challenges.

Now, over to Niki, Vincent and Sarah…

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Niki Roach: Vincent, thank you so much for welcoming us to your amazing office here in New York. It's great to be with you this morning.

Vincent Lee: It's great having you here. I'm glad you were able to enjoy the views this morning.

NR: So let's start. You obviously focus on integrated water management here in New York City, and more broadly climate resilience and nature. I can only imagine in a city of what, nine million residents on this constrained strip of land, how difficult that is to get the balance of those things right. Give us a bit of a sense of the scale of the challenge for managing water, nature, and climate in New York City.

VL: I mean, New York City is known as the concrete urban jungle, right? And culturally, we see the tall buildings, the skyscrapers, the streets and the activity around that, all the pedestrians. And what you don't see oftentimes is the nature that's embedded in the city. It's really hard to fit in nature and natural hydrology and all those components in an urban setting like this, particularly in one that is as dense and as busy as New York. So, when you try to find opportunities around incorporating nature, you really have to be creative around that space. And you really have to find great collaborators, both on the planning and design side and the city side – the stakeholders and the communities that you're working with.

It's fun, but it is rigorous in terms of the process, in terms of, how do you make this work? How do we maximise nature, but also how do we not compromise the things that we need to accomplish from an urban infrastructure perspective? And then also how do we improve the lives of New Yorkers? How do we create places that people want to visit? How do we improve equity in terms of providing high quality nature and public space to people? And then how do double duty with the spaces that we have? If we can take a piece of parkland, for example, and then also use that parkland as a form of engineering and infrastructure, in a city like New York and in ultra urban areas, that is truly a win-win, right? Because now you're making the most out of the space that you have.

NR: I like that term, double duty. I've not heard that before. That's great. Let's talk a little bit about some of the projects that you have been involved in in the city.

VL: It's been a fun ride. I've been here with Arup now for 20 years and the projects I've worked on are as small as literally five foot by 20 foot, all the way to as big as 30 acres. And in all cases, they incorporate some degree of that integration of the green and the grey: how do we incorporate green and grey infrastructure together? And I think that's been the fun part of the journey, in terms of, how do you incorporate nature in a city environment that will support its infrastructure at different scales?

One example, starting small, is the thousands and thousands of rain gardens throughout New York City. And the way that they work is that they basically are street trees that accept water from the streets. And what that does is help to improve the quality of that water, because now you've got soil, you've got planting that's helping to help clean up that water. It's helping to absorb that water into the ground so that it doesn't flow into our waterways and doesn't cause flooding. If you do one, that's fantastic, but if you do thousands of them, that starts to make quite a difference in the neighbourhoods and across the city. Not only does it improve all those things related to water, it's also providing shade, it's improving the urban heat island effect, the concrete jungle, it's helping with that aspect. And then it's also providing green space in many areas that have been neglected. So I think it's an absolute win-win-win, those types of projects.

Vincent Lee, senior project lead at Arup

And then if we scale up to parks and public housing, we've had the opportunity to also find creative ways to incorporate [green infrastructure], even converting paved areas and parking lots in public properties. Thinking about rain gardens or pavement that's porous that allows water to get absorbed into the ground. It's totally transformed a lot of those areas. And again, it's doing double duty. These infrastructure systems that are put in are not only incorporating nature, but they are doing work for the city in terms of its utility needs.

And then if we scale up – there are 520 miles of coastline in New York City. New York City has been vulnerable in the past to the threat of climate change and major storms, and we saw that with Superstorm Sandy [in 2012]. The city has responded with really rethinking what we could do with our waterfronts. The waterfronts in New York City historically have been industrial so they've not only gone through this transformation of residents and businesses wanting to move out to the water's edge, but they're also now equally vulnerable to the threat of sea level rise and climate change. So as we think about these spaces where now people want to gravitate to, where public space is definitely needed, where connectivity is needed across the island, we also need to think creatively about how do we incorporate nature-based solutions as part of that. And again, there's this collaboration, if you will, of the development that's needed, the public space that's needed, the infrastructure that's needed, and I think finding that sweet spot of all those areas is what really makes a success.

NR: I guess there's always a balance to be struck, isn't there, with all of these projects? And there's a cost challenge as well: you’ve got to be able to make these things affordable. I'm really interested in just digging a little bit, excuse the pun, into your rain gardens, because certainly one of the challenges that we hear about in the UK is who owns those, who maintains them? They're a great idea, they look beautiful when you design them, and they probably look beautiful for the first year, but then what? Because they need to function. So how does that work? Does it work well in New York, and if so, how?

VL: Like any city, they experience their challenges around the maintenance of green infrastructure. If you think back to the root of what you're trying to solve – I'm a civil engineer by background so my first duty is to make sure that that road, or area, or neighbourhood is not flooding and if I were to design a drainage pipe, let's say, to help alleviate that, that's easy. I can size that, I can put that in the ground. And equally, if an agency or authority needs to maintain that, they know what they have to do, because it's on the ground, it's a pipe, it's great infrastructure.

But now you introduce these rain gardens that are on the street, that have landscaping, that are working in a functional way to manage water, have street trees that the authority hasn't had to maintain before. It does now bring into play much needed coordination across usually at least three different agencies: one that manages the water, one that manages the streets and transportation, and one that manages the parks. What we've seen in New York City is this really great collaboration across those agencies, defining ownership for each of these different systems. So it might be in some cases it’s the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. In other cases, if they're supporting and building some of the green infrastructure, let's say on public housing, they will make it a part of the agreement that that authority would manage that and maintain it. Because they're investing in this infrastructure on their site, they're also investing in green space and all these other benefits that comes with it.

So there needs to be dialogue and agreement amongst all those agencies and a partnership around that. Any of those partnerships or any of these innovations that come through, there's certainly a learning curve that happens. And I think this city now has come to a good place in terms of, what's the right level of collaboration and partnership that's needed? And also, what's the required amount of ownership that we need to take on to make sure that these things work?

And I think the other component of all this is the importance of education and outreach. We've seen in some cases, the neighbourhoods taking ownership of it; some neighbourhoods just yearn for it and say, ‘can we have one here in our streets?’ Sometimes we can accommodate. Sometimes, sorry, just from a hydrology perspective, we can't put one here. So we do our best. That's been exciting too to see the stewardship. And I think a lot of that just comes from education. Once folks are aware of it, once kids learn about it in school, they become really excited about it, they want to become stewards of the land that's around them.

NR: It's a lot more exciting than a drain, isn't it? Let's be honest, it does a lot more. So we've talked about micro scale, love that; rain gardens, almost pocket park type stuff. So let's scale up and you tell me a little bit about Hunter's Point, because you started to talk about that before in terms of large-scale projects you've been involved in. I would love to know a little bit more about what that was trying to achieve and I guess how you did it.

VL: Hunter's Point is a massive waterfront project. It was intended to help be a catalyst for development of former industrial land. That piece of land was not set up for development so it needed streets, it needed all sorts of utility infrastructure, and what they wanted to do was provide high-quality public space along the waterfront, so that it would make it a place and a destination for people to want to go. At the same time, that waterfront is also located along the East River, and again, it's subject to high tides, it's going to be subject to sea level rise and flooding, so we needed to be mindful of how do we strike that delicate balance of thinking about resilience, but also thinking about the needs and the wants of the future developments and the people that would be there?

It's important that as engineers we have a collaborative mindset, and that when we're working with designers like landscape architects and urban designers – and we had great ones on Hunter's Point South – that as they bring up ideas, we try to find ways that we can support them so that they can realise their vision in terms of what they want to see in the public space, in terms of the programming. Let's make one bit of this park be very active, where we want lots of people to go. Let's make another part of this park be very natural, almost like an escape for New Yorkers. And that park achieves both of those. But at the same time, what we tried to do was think about how we can incorporate infrastructure and water management that is in alignment with that vision. So we came up with water strategies that were in alignment with, let's say, more active programming and equally we came up with ones that were more in alignment with natural systems.

So a good example, in the active space where they want people to play, where they have lots of activity, there's a giant bowl, in Hunter's Point South. People play soccer on it, the fireworks celebration takes place on there, but that circle or that bowl is also a place which can store 600,000 gallons of water. It can fill up in the bowl during intense events so that it's not going off into the streets, not going off into the utility systems, not going off obviously into the buildings. So it's doing double duty, right, as a functional green space and a performative green space.

On the natural side, along the tip and the point of Hunter's Point, there's a tidal wetland and that tidal wetland is there to provide a living shoreline, it's there to improve water quality, it's there to act as a sponge for all of the water runoff from the streets and from the park. And then it's there to accept that tidal change that happens and really also provide a wonderful natural feature for the visitors and runners and all the walkers that are part of that. If you haven't had a chance to go, you should try to go. It really is a nice escape, in a way, seclusion away from the hustle and bustle of New York City, even though you can look right at New York City from there.

NR: You've talked a little bit about communities wanting rain gardens, for example. When you talk about a project at the scale of Hunter's Point South, is that an easy sell in New York? Because I would imagine, as I sit here and look out over this extraordinary skyline, land is at a premium, and some of the stuff that you're talking about physically takes space; and it's not high-rise, it is one story. Do people want it, or do you have to work really hard to be able to find a way of bringing nature and environment into projects?

VL: It's not that hard, if I'm completely honest. In terms of the community, it's not that hard. Because we're in this ultra-dense area, because there is – even though we've got great parks – still a lack of good quality public space and green space in the city, particularly around the waterfronts. It's gone through this fantastic transformation over the last couple of decades, and I think having this ribbon, this green ribbon around New York City now, has been a treat for New Yorkers and for visitors. So I think folks yearn for it. There are going to be opinions for sure. There are always opinions no matter where you go. And I think our job as designers and engineers is to try to take in those opinions, take in the wants of people, try to find the right solution that could make it work. What's the compromise that we need to do? And not be so pinned to certain biases. We have to be very open about it. And I think that's the fun part. But I don't think we see too many barriers around nature. Everyone wants to have it. If anything, sometimes people want more of it, and unfortunately, we can't sometimes always accomplish that because we are tight on space.

Little Island, New York. Photo credit: Shutterstock/Andres Garcia Martin.

The unique thing about Little Island is that the Titanic was supposed to dock there [when it was known as Pier 54]. So there's some history around that pier. It used to be a long, rectangular pier. That's been taken down, but the piles are still in the water. The idea here was to create a performance space so that you can have shows, you can have concerts, and things like that. They sort of came up with that idea of creating this bowl. The first sketches were definitely eye-opening, but that's a challenge, right? That's the fun part. That's how we arrived at the solution of having those [large, tulip-shaped concrete] pots in the water so that we can get repetition in the structure, save cost, hold up the trees – because the trees need soil to grow on.

And then the shape [Little Island] is very intentional. Some of it is a view out to the west in Jersey, where it’s more of an amphitheatre, and then there are other [perspectives] where you could sit on the lawn and then it projects you out to the east side, where you can also have shows. So it's different types of programming you can have.

So that's a long way for me to say that the double duty there is rethinking how piers can be done through creative structures, so that you can incorporate arts and culture and performances in a public space. Pretty unique, but it's so cool.

NR: Well, it looks beautiful, and it's great to be able to see it from here. So I'm excited. I'm going to go and have a look as well.

So I guess final question for me, Vincent. You are a New Yorker, right? In and around New York has been your home for basically forever and now you're a professional engineer working in this space. If there was one takeaway from the work that you've done and that you think would be applicable internationally, that you would like people to reflect on, what would that be?

VL: One of the things that's happened in New York is that we experienced Superstorm Sandy, which was a record-breaking surge which did a severe amount of damage economically and socially across the city. Because of that, we've had to respond to the challenges of climate change in the immediate term. We're at the front lines of it. And I think because we've done that, anytime a hand is forced, a lot of times innovation also comes out of that. And I think as a result, I think we've seen a lot of really great waterfront projects come forward. Ingenuity in terms of, how do you incorporate nature? How do you rethink seawalls, for example? How do you incorporate new ideas? And how do we really think about living shorelines and all of these different components that we talk about a lot? There are projects here that incorporate all of those different tools in the toolkit. We're seeing like others look to New York and say, ‘hey, it's great that you guys are doing this, what can we pull from what you guys are learning?’ Because any kind of development, any kind of work that you do on infrastructure is always a challenge, but where land meets water, that oftentimes is the biggest challenge, because of the complexities around that.

NR: Well, I'm excited to go and explore the city and go and see some of your projects in that case, then. It's been a total joy to welcome you to Planet Possible. Thank you for joining us, Vincent.

Water quality improvements

NR: I really enjoyed that conversation with Vincent and the most magnificent view from his office window in busy downtown Manhattan. And now I'm in a different part of New York, surrounded by beautiful houses. And it's a reminder that this is not just a city of business or the city that you see in the movies, but also one that a lot of people live in.

I'm going to meet Sarah Galst of Hazen and Sawyer. Sarah is a longtime New York resident, and she's also worked on the New York City Nitrogen Program [sic], which is about improving water quality in the waters that surround New York. And I'm going to find out a little bit more from Sarah about what it's like to live in a city and how New Yorkers feel about the environment that surrounds them.

NR: Hi, Sarah, welcome to Planet Possible.

Sarah Galst: Thank you, Niki.

NR: It's wonderful to have you with us and thank you for welcoming us to your home here in downtown Manhattan. I know that you have been working on a really interesting programme of reducing nutrients into the waters around New York City. Tell us a little bit about the backstory to that project.

SG: Sure. Many, many years ago, in the ‘90s, a study was conducted on the Long Island Sound. It’s [a tidal estuary] north of the city that feeds into the East River. And they were seeing poor water quality, low dissolved oxygen concentrations. That's important for the aquatic life in the water, and they needed to figure out, what's the reasoning behind this? A lot of tests were done because they were seeing these algal blooms. This algae would grow and grow and grow. It would die and decay and just suck up all the oxygen in the water.

So what is the source of this? Where is this algae coming from? And they determined that it was just an abundance of nitrogen in the water bodies. And so that really led to the requirement that the nitrogen discharged be reduced. And that was the genesis of the New York City Nitrogen Program. There were several plants that discharged into the East River, which is in the northern part of the city. And they were asked to reduce the amount of nitrogen they discharged by 58.5%.

Sarah Galst, vice president at Hazen and Sawyer

NR: So four big wastewater treatment plants, let's call them that for ease, all discharging into the East River, is that right?

SG: Into the East River, that's right. Those four were the main portion of this project. So those treatment plants needed to be upgraded to remove nitrogen from their process. These are New York City plants, so they have to treat a lot of flow, and they can't stop treating the flow. You can't just cut the pipe off and upgrade them and then put the water back on again. So they had to be online and operational for the entirety of these upgrades. These are also New York City plants, so they don't have room for expansion. Their footprint is completely filled up, and they're also very old. Some of our plants are 100 years old. And so there's really not a lot of opportunities to just easily go in and upgrade a plant. It required a lot of complicated planning and timing to make sure that we could take just a bit [of instructure] off at a time, upgrade it, put it back on, take the next bit off and upgrade it. And not just do it at one plant, but do it at four different plants.

NR: Was that done in collaboration with lots of different engineering companies, or just your firm that were involved? Give me a sense of the scale, I guess, because that sounds like that's quite a lot of projects.

SG: It was. It was a multi-billion dollar project. So it was not just my firm. There were research organisations involved and colleges involved. And obviously the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was spearheading this, plus several other consulting firms. And so one of the things at the very start of this project was to make sure that we're making the right decisions from the get-go, so that we don't invest a lot of time and money in the wrong process. So research was done at the very start to determine what's the best process that we need to implement at these treatment plants. And the process was decided to be what's called step feed in this case. And it was something that we could implement into our plants fairly easily, and it could handle different temperatures, because in the Northeast we have a wide fluctuation: we have very cold winters, we have very hot summers. It could also handle wet weather, because we do get a lot of wet weather. We're very water rich in the Northeast. And then before the design teams were brought in, one piece that I think we’re all very proud of, was we wrote what we called guidance. And this guidance was almost like a recipe or a rulebook for how to implement this specific process. And just to make sure that the different design teams that were coming in didn't go in completely different directions, we wanted to give a very consistent approach to how these, what we call biological nitrogen removal upgrades, were implemented.

NR: You said it was a big project. How much did it cost and how long did it take to do the four plants?

SG: Oh my goodness. So the project was officially over in 2017, but it started back in the 1990s. So you know, multiple decades and $2 billion were the upgrades over the course of it. And it was a really impressive project. And at the end of the day, we did meet this 58.5% reduction that was required.

NR: And are you seeing those benefits within the water quality? I mean, obviously the nutrients have gone down, that was the kind of point of the programme. Was it the right answer? Have we seen the water quality around New York improving over the last 20 or 30 years? Has that been the general direction of travel?

SG: Towards the end of the programme we were going into the plants and we were talking with the operators and saying, okay, this is what has been done to your plant. This is why it was done to your plant. Here's the science behind it, but here's the practical nuts and bolts about how you apply it. And we went to the plants during the first phase of upgrades, and then when we went again during the second phase of upgrades, we were talking with one of the operators and he said, “I really love to go and just sit on the dock and go fishing during my lunch break and I've been noticing that the fish are back. I'm actually able to see fish.” And so it's a way of actually experiencing the increase in the improvement in the water quality.

NR: I think sometimes those stories are the things that then stay with people and that's how you can share what you've done in a really accessible way.

SG: Yeah, it's a lot more tangible than reading a study [that says] the oxygen levels are going up. To say [instead], I'm seeing fish that I haven't seen for years and they're back, the water is healthy enough to support them.

NR: Yeah, amazing. It sounds like a really positive project. It sounds like you set it up really well, that you talked to all the relevant stakeholders. I'm really interested in how in the US the treatment of wastewater is structurally managed, because in the UK, it's quite a complex landscape. We have privatised water companies who own the treatment works, but they're collecting wastewater from highway drains. They are collecting surface water. You've got a whole range of different stakeholder types. To try and make big systemic change is often quite difficult. We've often got quite a lot of inertia. There are a lot of parties to connect.

Just explain a little bit about [how it works here]. Is this all just one government department, one city department? Who's involved in these kind of projects? Because it sounds like the coordination was really good.

SG: Yeah, so in New York, the New York City DEP is on the water side and on the wastewater side. So their departments can work together very seamlessly. The regulator is the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. So DEP and DEC. And they do have to talk together and work to make sure that whatever DEP plans to do is aligned with what DEC wants and within the timeframe that they want and achieves the goals that they want. But DEP has both responsibilities for the water and the wastewater side, which I think does make it much more seamless. And everyone is on the same team working for the same agency. And I'm sure there's going to be [moments when you have people saying], we want to do this, but it conflicts with this. But it's much easier to work out since they're in the same agency.

NR: And how is the work funded? Because you said it's $2 billion. That is a really big, chunky bit of investment. Where does that come from? Who pays?

SG: Well, we have a special New York City tax.

NR: Do people know that's what they're paying for?

SG: I would hope so. You know, people don't always realise that when you turn on a tap and water comes out, how much work goes into that. And then when you flush a toilet, how much work goes into that as well. It's almost expected. But there's so much that goes into it. And one of the big political things is always keeping the water rates low. And so it is important to know just how much you need water to come out of that tap and water to go down that drain and that it does need to be funded.

NR: I think the challenge of valuing water is universal. You are definitely not the first person I've heard say that. And I'm sure you won't be the last.

More generally, I suppose, with the wastewater treatment in New York, it sounds like nutrients have been an issue. But as a wider challenge, given we've got a fairly constrained bit of land here, quite a large amount of people, how are those wastewater treatment works, those treatment plants, faring more generally? I mean, it sounds like quite old infrastructure from what you've said, 100 years plus. Is there lots of investment more generally going into treatment of wastewater in New York? Is that the sort of trend?

SG: We can call them maybe ‘state of good repair’ projects. A lot of money is being spent to maybe replace equipment that might have just reached the end of its useful life or tanks that have reached the end of their structural life. So yes, the city does put a lot of time and money investing into those types of upgrades.

NR: Yeah, we're certainly seeing a huge amount of investment going into the equivalent in the UK. And part of that is driven by public desire now to see tangible improvements in river health. And we're seeing huge billions of pounds about to be spent over the next sort of 10 years, certainly in England and Wales.

Is there a general trend here in New York for wanting a better environment? Give me a sense of how New Yorkers feel about their environment in what could be described as a concrete jungle, really. Is there that pull for, “we want better”, or are you quite disconnected from it?

SG: With this many millions of people, there's a lot of really strong voices and they do want the best place to live. When you have to live all squished together, you do want a piece of nature and you do want nature to be available to your family and you can experience it growing up. And so I would say, yes, the residents here are very aware of the environment and do want better for themselves and their families. We see a lot of responses to that within the city with investments in things like resiliency and green infrastructure. The increasing effects of climate change are coming in and we're starting to see more flooding and we have events like Hurricane Sandy that come in and literally wipe out parts of the city and make them unusable for a long amount of time. And we're seeing investments going in, we're seeing seawalls being built and we're seeing rain gardens being built and we're seeing that the city is looking to address things like cloudbursts because they understand that these are things that negatively impact their citizens' life.

NR: Tell me what a cloudburst is.

SG: You have a really intense, strong amount of precipitation falling in a very small, like a pocket, almost, you could say one neighbourhood. It's pouring and the next neighbourhood over, it's not at all. So we've actually seen that happen and you can have some really unfortunate effects from that. We have basements flooding and people can be trapped. And so that is something that's an effect of climate change and it's something that the city is actively looking to do something about.

NR: It's really interesting that you can make that quite clear link here because of the connection with water and proximity to the ocean, but also it sounds like the weather systems are becoming slightly more erratic. Is that something from that from an administrative, city level, are you hearing those conversations happening? Is the mayor talking about that? Is that something that as a city you're quite alive to or is there climate change scepticism alive and well in New York as well?

SG: I would say that most people in New York – I don't want to speak for everyone politically – but I would say that generally climate changes is agreed upon here, especially because we've had some pretty significant climate impacts that have hit us. We've seen very, very cold winters and very, very hot summers, and we're seeing these cloudbursts, and we've seen the impacts of what Superstorm Sandy did. And if you walk along the water, you'll actually see lampposts that show you where the water height will be if climate change continues. And so I would say the city is very aware of it. We've got parks that are being shut down for years for substantial construction to make them more resilient to future storms. So the citizens of the city are seeing it in action every day.

NR: Fascinating. I'm looking forward to exploring a bit more actually while we're here and seeing some of that in practice.

I want to talk to you a little bit about nature. You live here. It's extraordinary to me that you live right in the heart of this city that I've seen on films and actually you're raising a family here. So that connection with nature and the ability to be close to it, are you seeing that over the period of time you've lived here, is that changing? Are there more opportunities? Is it greening as a city, do you think? Or is it fairly static or are you seeing it go backwards?

SG: I would say it depends on where you live. So I chose to live downtown where there are a lot of parks, so I can have my kids running around in parks. There are certain areas of the city that really don't have that access to it. And I think that there are communities, and people that represent and speak for those communities, that are aware of the lack of green spaces in the city and speak up that that's important and it's something that needs to be brought in. And so when maybe park alienation - that's when a park is taken over and something is built on top of it – there's a lot of work that has to be done before that is even allowed. A lot of different steps and approvals that's required because parks are so valuable here in New York, that green space. We don't have much of it.

NR: From an equity perspective, it's really interesting to see how New York is grappling with that. So just reflecting, I suppose, on the nutrient programme that you were involved with for a good period of time, Sarah, and we've got listeners all over the world that are working on all sorts of big infrastructure projects. What's one of your big takeaways? If there was something that you would want to share, what would that be?

SG: It's just to get the plan right, because if you go off in the wrong direction, then you're sunk. So you have to spend the time upfront doing the research, doing the planning, writing guidance, talking with the regulators, making sure everyone is on board, everyone agrees with this before you start investing thousands of hours and billions of dollars, because you don't want to come back and say, “we need to change it, we need to do this differently”. Because often you don't get that opportunity to pivot when you're so far along. So the upfront planning is so important.

NR: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for welcoming us to your wonderful home and for sharing your New York experiences with us. It's been an absolute joy to welcome you.

Reflections from Niki

NR: So as we come towards the end of our time here in New York, I'm on the Upper West Side in Riverside Park next to the Hudson River. And you can see the George Washington Bridge in the background connecting Manhattan with New Jersey. And if I look off into the distance, I can see the towering skyscrapers of Downtown. This is a city absolutely connected to water. On three sides, it's surrounded by it, the East River, the Hudson and then out into the Long Island Sound.

And I think my big reflections from our time here are the importance of double duty. So, when you're building practical infrastructure projects in New York, how do you also make them beautiful places that people want to be? We've seen examples of that at Hunter's Point South and visiting Little Island. Absolutely beautiful pieces of design, but they're also serving a really practical purpose.

The second reflection, I think, is that green infrastructure has been prioritised here, and it's really possible to deliver affordable and practical solutions when you've got people working together to do that. It's structured differently in New York - make no bones about that. The Department for Environmental Protection means that everybody is working for the same organisation, trying to deliver those solutions, but they are deliverable. They have been delivered, whether that's rain gardens, permeable paving, even the High Line. There is a real focus on trying to make that happen, and it's made me reflect that it's really possible if we all work together and we engage with local communities.

I think my third reflection is that this is a city that has been directly impacted by our changing climate. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 meant that thousands of people were without power for weeks on end, and basements were flooded, and there were sadly fatalities. This is a city that is responding to those challenges. If you head down to the Statue of Liberty at Battery Park and the lookout down there, you'll see brand new sea defences being built. Hunter's Point that Vincent talked about also has a huge stormwater attenuation pond in the middle of it. This is a city that is responding to those challenges. But what does it take for our other cities that maybe haven't been as directly impacted by climate change to do the same?

New York is not perfect. The Hudson here has storm overflows that go into it. This is a city that has a combined system. So its rainwater mixes with its foul water. And that means that on very heavy rainfall events like the cloudburst that Sarah talked about, you will have sewage flowing into the rivers. This is a city that still has much to do. But I think overall it's a city that perhaps because it can see the water and it can see its lack of nature, maybe is a little more focused on how to make those things just a little bit better.

I hope you've enjoyed this New York special with us. We've loved bringing it to you. And until next time, stay curious and stay connected.

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