Preparing Chelsea to Better Adapt to Climate Change

The City of Chelsea is susceptible to climate change and its impacts due to the increased risk of flooding, increased storm severity, and increased number of extreme heat events. Our team provided, created, and validated a set of guidance documents for the City of Chelsea’s Planning Board, Zoning Board, and Conservation Commission with the support of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sea Grant College Program. These documents were designed to inform the boards about climate change and its impacts, provide a list of physical and socioeconomic vulnerabilities of the city, provide questions to ask developers, and highlight mitigation and adaptation strategies that could be implemented in the Everett Avenue area. We analyzed geographic data and conducted interviews in order to help create these guidance documents. These guidance documents are a first step for expanding climate change considerations to all buildings and areas of Chelsea. Our recommendations addressed the effective use of the guidance documents and the steps that should be taken in the future to expand upon this project to further address climate change on a city and state level.