Planning for a more resilient New Jersey shoreline

A barrier island off the coast of New Jersey, Long Beach Island is highly exposed to the effects of climate change and sea level rise, particularly related to the severity, unpredictability, and frequency of storms and flooding. With flooding on the island expected to only worsen, a strong climate resilience strategy for the region is critical.

Ramboll was retained by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) for the multiyear Resilient LBI planning process through the Resilient NJ program. Ramboll was a subconsultant to Kleinfelder and served as the project management and content lead for the Resilient LBI program. The Resilient NJ Program, administered by NJDEP with funding from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, helps vulnerable coastal communities plan for the impacts of climate change. Ramboll led the technical assessment and public outreach for the development, design, and implementation of the action plan.

Ramboll has worked on two separate phases of work for the Resilient LBI program. First, we developed the Resilient LBI Action Plan as a vision for community resilience. Then, we were re-engaged by NJ DEP to complete a planning implementation phase of work to help advance resilience projects toward implementation.

Creating a shared vision

The Resilient LBI Action Plan offers a roadmap for climate resilience. The plan emerged from a two-year community planning process to create an aligned vision for a resilient barrier island. We conducted an existing conditions analysis and did extensive data collection to understand the region and its needs. We then developed an integrated flood model that showcased the risks that projected sea-level rise and increased precipitation events pose to the barrier island. Flood scenarios were based on conservative estimates of high tide combined with degrees of sea-level rise, projected precipitation events, and storm surge.

The Action Plan includes a series of recommended projects and actions, including infrastructure upgrades, regulatory changes, and regional advocacy for state and federal policy changes. The plan addresses the distinct challenges of climate change impacts in each LBI community and recommends place-based responses driven by community members who are directly impacted by climate. In the short- to medium-term, the focus of the Resilient LBI Action Plan is to reduce the impacts of climate change and sea level rise on LBI residents, visitors, homes, businesses, and infrastructure. These actions focus on community safety and the reduction of repetitive losses due to extreme weather events where possible. In the longer term, impacts of climate change and flooding, such as sea level rise, will require more substantial actions such as regulatory and land use tools. The Resilient LBI Action Plan includes potential regulatory and land use tools that municipalities can consider when there is community consensus around future land use changes.

The final product – the Resilient LBI Action Plan - provided a toolkit of actions that are focused on community safety and reduced risk. The Action Plan includes regulatory and land use tools that municipalities on the island can consider implementing to increase resilience across LBI.

Plan in action

Following completion of the Resilient LBI Action Plan, Ramboll continued working with NJDEP and the LBI community. The subsequent phase of work, which was completed in 2025, was focused on planning implementation. During this phase, we assisted each of the six municipalities with implementation of priority actions, with a focus on seeking access to additional funding. Our team worked with local stakeholders and project sponsors on LBI to conduct further analysis, such as conceptual plans for use in grant applications for additional funding. We developed site-specific and regional actions to create living shorelines, address stormwater flooding, increase emergency preparedness, and assess vulnerability to broad impacts of climate change.

As part of this phase, we supported Long Beach Township’s successful application for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) National Coastal Resilience Fund (NCRF) grant. Ramboll is currently working with the Township to design a living shoreline and flood protections for critical infrastructure.

Upon completion of the planning implementation phase, the municipalities and other stakeholders on LBI will be able to use the Resilient LBI Action Plan and subsequent conceptual plans to seek out future grant funding and/or advance resilience projects with local resources. Throughout the multi-year process, we emphasized the need to consider the Resilient LBI program as one step along the way in supporting ongoing efforts to make the Long Beach Island community more resilient to the impacts of climate change.