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Climate change will have a significant impact on natural and human systems in and around Jamaica Bay if no further major investments are made.

• All key performance metrics show declining outcomes with plausible future sea level rise (SLR), including reduced habitat areas, more frequent and widespread persistent monthly (or more frequent) tidal flooding, and lower dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations.
• Results suggest that Jamaica Bay could cope with a certain amount of SLR, but that there might be threshold effects between 1.5 and 3 feet that would lead to rapid ecosystem losses and more frequent inundation.

Two baywide adaptation concepts were developed with the goal of reducing tidal flooding, improving water quality, and restoring habitat.

• Concept 1, which includes a storm surge barrier across Jamaica Bay Inlet and various proposed restoration and perimeter protection measures, would yield only small improvements in terms of land area change.
• Exposure of assets to persistent tidal flooding would be mitigated slightly under Concept 1, and DO concentrations would show small increases when looking across the bay as a whole.
• In contrast, Concept 2, focused on inlet narrowing and more extensive wetland restoration than in Concept 1, shows improvement across all metrics compared with a future without action.
• The habitat footprint would expand significantly under Concept 2, while DO concentrations would improve across key areas of the bay.
• Concept 2 results also suggest that nature-based inlet narrowing could also somewhat mitigate persistent tidal flooding.