Recently, the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Sustainable Solutions Lab has been working on a barrier wall that will protect Boston Harbor. This wall is a cautionary measure in response to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

According to the Sustainable Solutions Lab, sea levels of Boston Harbor have risen. WCVB reported this week that a climate report by the city of Boston is predicting Boston Harbor to experience a rise of eight inches within the next ten years. Mayor Marty Walsh recently told the Boston Herald that “if [the city of Boston] got hit with a storm like this, if Harvey hit Boston Harbor, we are wiped out as a city.”

The current UMass Boston project, which is still in development, is led by Professor Paul Kirchen from the School for the Environment. The project specifically plans to construct three harbor barriers to protect Boston Harbor and its neighboring communities.

WBUR was able to get an outline of the university’s extended plan for the Harbor. According to their article, the first planned barrier is expected to stretch from Logan Airport to Castle Island, meant to protect town homes from flooding. The second barrier is set to run from Deer Island to Quincy and is meant to also protect local families. The third proposed harbor barrier is planned to wall in Boston’s neighboring towns like Quincy and Hull. According to the research team’s report, the outermost layer of the walls would help to protect the city from flood risk.

The University’s current project will require funding and, according to UMass Boston Professor of Marine Biology Lucy Lockwood, it is still unclear as to what the predicted budget may be. The Boston Herald reported earlier this month that the predicted cost of the project is $10 billion, but UMass Boston has yet to confirm budgeting since plans are still in progress.  

Team members on the Harbor Barrier Project are not making any promises to local Boston Harbor residents. But, according to Lockwood, the project, in addition to protecting the city, is expected to potentially preserve Boston Harbor’s ecosystem as well. Lockwood told WBUR earlier this month, of the harbor walls, “How can we learn to create them such that they are a healthy, robust, resilient, functioning ecosystem,” she said, “just as if to say they were, say, a natural rocky shoreline?”

Environmental engineer Bob Daylor from Tetra Tech in Marlborough is also currently working on the project with UMass Boston researchers. According to Daylor in his interview with WBUR, the science behind the team’s Harbor Barrier Plan is accurate and promising: “The science says it’s going to happen and the question is, does anyone act or do we wait till Sandy happens? Or do we act proactively to try to avoid those losses?” He added that many times in the past, the U.S. has only waited for disasters to happen.

The UMass Boston Harbor Barrier Project is expected to release a final report that outlines their hypothesized barriers and their functionality and feasibility this upcoming December.