All of the RCN activities are intended to promote a diverse and comprehensive research network that fosters the future development of transformative, policy-relevant research initiatives. A new resilient infrastructure framework serves as the basis for this RCN, and includes understanding communities as existing and evolving within adaptive gradients, addressing spill-over and equity effects of infrastructure decisions, using evidence regarding the impacts of fast-onset disasters (e.g., hurricanes, tsunamis) to improve practices and policies for chronic, slow-onset phenomena (e.g. sea level rise), and tying the application of our theory to increasingly available indicators of climate change and local conditions. Caribbean region researchers and policy-makers are key partners in this effort as they bring extensive practical and research experience in managing disaster risk and recent highly innovative regional approaches to adapting to climate change.
Project period: January 1, 2014 to September 30, 2019.
Steering Committee: David Dodman (International Institute for Environment and Development, Governance & Equity), Fernando Gilbes (Univ. of Puerto Rico, Geology), Brian McAdoo (Professor and College Rector, Yale-NUS College), Farrokh Nadim (NGI/ICG Oslo, Geohazards), Leonard Nurse (U. of West Indies, Coastal Hazards), Kim Penn (Climate Change Coordinator, NOAA, and Dale Webber (Director, Centre for Marine Sciences, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus).
NSF Research Collaboration Network (RCN): Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) Project title: Sustainable Adaptive Gradients in the Coastal Environment (SAGE): Reconceptualizing the Role of Infrastructure in Resilience Award Number: ICER-1338767
For more information, including permission to credit the SAGE grant, please contact:
Elisabeth M. Hamin Professor of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, University of Massachusetts emhamin@umass.edu 413-577-4490
Mailing Address: Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning 210 Design Building University of Massachusetts 551 North Pleasant Street Amherst, MA 01003-2901 #413-545-4859 413-687-8722 (cell)