The New York City (NYC) Department of City Planning created a short video to illustrate special zoning regulations that apply in the floodplain. It explains NYC’s flood risk and how flood resilient construction is an important part of NYC’s effort to build multiple lines of defense from coastal flooding. City Planning also wants to generate input on how zoning could be further modified to remove regulatory barriers to resiliency investments and make neighborhoods more resilient. Visit www.nyc.gov/resilientneighborhoods or email ResilientNeighborhoods@planning.nyc.gov for more information on City Planning’s work.

Direct link to video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QJYgm0fRHk

Investing in Natural and Nature-Based Infrastructure:
Building Better Along Our Coasts

Abstract: Much of the United States’ critical infrastructure is either aging or requires significant repair, leaving U.S. communities and the economy vulnerable. Outdated and dilapidated infrastructure places coastal communities, in particular, at risk from the increasingly frequent and intense coastal storm events and rising sea levels. Therefore, investments in coastal infrastructure are urgently needed to ensure community safety and prosperity; however, these investments should not jeopardize the ecosystems and natural resources that underlie economic wealth and human well-being. Over the past 50 years, efforts have been made to integrate built infrastructure with natural landscape features, often termed “green” infrastructure, in order to sustain and restore valuable ecosystem functions and services. For example, significant advances have been made in implementing green infrastructure approaches for stormwater management, wastewater treatment, and drinking water conservation and delivery. However, the implementation of natural and nature-based infrastructure (NNBI) aimed at flood prevention and coastal erosion protection is lagging. There is an opportunity now, as the U.S. government reacts to the recent, unprecedented flooding and hurricane damage and considers greater infrastructure investments, to incorporate NNBI into coastal infrastructure projects. Doing so will increase resilience and provide critical services to local communities in a cost-effective manner and thereby help to sustain a growing economy.

Click here for the article.

Published by The Conversation
During the 2017 Atlantic basin hurricane season, six major storms – all of which were Category 3 or higher – produced devastating human, material and financial devastation across the southern United States and the Caribbean.
Last year’s above-average storm activity was foreseeable. Hurricane intensity ticked up in 2016 and scientists have predicted this trend will hold as global temperatures continue to rise.
Though people in the U.S. and the Caribbean share this increasing vulnerability to hurricanes, they hold very different opinions about the severity of climate change. According to results from the latest Vanderbilt University AmericasBarometer survey, a strong majority of Caribbean residents perceive climate change as a “very serious” problem. In contrast, just 44 percent of the U.S. public does.  Why the difference of opinion? Our research identifies two key factors: politics and risk perception. 

Click here for the rest of the article.

Authors

1. Elizabeth J. ZechmeisterCornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science and Director of LAPOP, Vanderbilt University
   
2. Claire Q. EvansDoctoral Student, Political Science, Vanderbilt University
   

(CNN)  Sea level rise is happening now, and the rate at which it is rising is increasing every year, according to a study released Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Check out the CNN Report here.

Thanks to an organization of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon, the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, and the leading Global Disaster Resilience Centre of the University of Huddersfield, the prestigious International Conference on Building Resilience (ICBR), with the theme Risk and Resilience in practice: Vulnerabilities, Displaced People, Local Communities and Heritages, will be held November 7-9, 2018, in the historical city of Lisbon, Portugal.

As with the previous editions of the ICBR series – most recently held in Bangkok, Thailand, in last November, with over 325 delegates – the 8th ICBR 2018' Lisbon conference will bring together the full diversity of the science community, policy makers, practitioners and researchers from all geographical regions, at local, national, regional and international levels to share state of the art research, and discuss how the science community will best support the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

We warmly invite you to submit an abstract to one of the 26 tracks available.  I call your attention, in particular, to Track 3F - 'New Directions in Resilient Infrastructure: Critical, Decentralized, and Hybrid Systems Built to Serve People' that I am chairing with Isabel Kaubisch of Clarendon Hill Consulting.
Please find below and attached the Call for Papers.

You may submit your abstract until March 4 through the Easy Chair submission platform at http://2018.buildresilience.org/  (Easychair you will require you to set up an account first). 


IMPORTANT NOTES 

1. Please note in the header of your abstract:
a) the track & subtheme of your preference,
b)  whether you are submitting for ORAL or POSTER presentation,
and do NOT put your details on the abstracts' body text field at the submision form nor on the PDF file to be submitted  (name, affiliation, email, etc)  as all abstracts will be subject to double-blinded peer review. 

2. Submitted abstracts should be limited to 400-500 words, covering the following aspects: Background context; Justification of the research / research argument; Goals; Methods/ approach; Findings / results; Conclusions. 
After the abstract paragraph, keywords should be presented (up to 5).

3. DEADLINE
March 4, 2018: Abstract submission close
4. MORE INFO
Further details of the conference (Special features, Associate partners, fee reductions, and publication opportunities) are available at: http://2018.buildresilience.org. 
For any queries please contact the Organizing Committee: icbr2018@buildingresilience.org.


We look forward to receiving your submission. Get on board!
_

CALL FOR PAPERS8th International Conference on Building Resilience, 7-9 November 2018, Lisbon

Considering the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 we expect submissions to be aligned, in particular, with priority 3 “Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience”.

Track 3F
New Directions in Resilient Infrastructure: Critical, Decentralized, and Hybrid Systems Built to Serve People

Description of Track Scope
Infrastructure – how it is defined, valued, designed, and funded – is changing in an era of superstorms, extreme temperatures & precipitation, and shrinking national, regional, and municipal budgets.

Who infrastructure serves best – and who it leaves behind – and how it must be reconceived in a regime of a changing climate to serve more justly and equitably is a central consideration.

Main Questions
This session resides within the main track "Investing in disaster reduction for resilience". Our session aims to investigate the design and uses of traditional infrastructure e.g. transportation, water and sewer infrastructure while offering new insights into a more resilient approach which places people back in the focus. Our session will span in scale and context from the general to the specific. Our track will address - and submitted papers should respond to - the following concerns:

1. Defining infrastructure
2. Defining risk as it relates to infrastructure
3. Defining resilience as it relates to infrastructure
   • For whom? To what? Who decides?
   • Resilience as a process/diagnostic vs. end goal
   • Must infrastructure itself be resilient, or does infrastructure contribute to resilience?
4. How is infrastructure traditionally valued? How should it be valued in an era of shortages?
5. Who does infrastructure serve?
6. What does it do, what should it be doing, and for how long?
7. Why is it needed in the first place?
8. How can it be tailored to better serve marginalized, vulnerable populations, and displaced peoples in a regime of a changing climate?

Goals
According to the identified UNISDR’s Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction goals, the track seeks case study examples that explore the drive toward the decentralization and interconnection of infrastructure, and which address the Sendai Framework goals cross-disciplinarily. The focus will be on actionable strategies for funding, creating, and maintaining more responsive and resilient infrastructural systems.

Themes
Submitted papers are encouraged to address no more than three (3) of the following themes:

• Traditional infrastructure
• The Drive to Decentralization and Interconnection
• Benefits and risks of decentralization and interconnection
• Scaling down while scaling up
• Decentralized green – stormwater management (green roofs, bioswales, etc.)
• Aggregation for economies of scale: microgrids, neighborhood power, community solar programs, etc.
• Housing as critical infrastructure
• Hybrid & Green infrastructure

Deadline
Abstract submissions close 4 March 2018, 12PM, GMT + 1,00 TIME. For more information and online submission, please visit buildresilience.org/2018

Track chairs information
Dave Hampton regroundllc@gmail.com
Principal, re:ground LLC resiliency strategies
Co-chair, Boston Society of Architects Committee on Resilient Environments (CORE)

Isabel Kaubisch isabel@chillcons.com
Principal, Clarendon Hill Consulting LLC
Urban and Environmental Planning Firm focused on Hazard Mitigation Planning and Resilient Strategies

Call for Poster Presentation Proposals

The 2018 LOCAL SOLUTIONS: Eastern Climate Preparedness Conference will bring together local government decision-makers and other community-based participants in learning how to prepare for climate change impacts in their communities. We invite proposals from students for poster presentations based on applied research supporting the conference's four tracks: built environment; public health and green space; planning and process; and communication, leadership, and engagement. An award of $300 will go to the best poster submission.

Criteria for proposal:

• Eligibility: Currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students from institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada.
• Content: Proposals should be 200 words max highlighting research objectives and important findings and 200 words max describing how submission is relevant to the conference's themes;
• Submission: Please use this form to submit your proposal.  Proposals for posters are due by Feb 20, 2018.

If proposal is selected for the conference:

• Format: Posters should be a minimum 22" x 28" that can be attached to standing dividers. Poster must be printed by the presenter.
• Registration: Presenters must register for the conference. Student rate is $135 and is not affected by the Early Bird deadline.
• Attendance: Presenters must be at their posters and available to speak about their research during the poster session on Tuesday, May 1, from 3:30pm to 6:00pm.

Please submit proposals online through this form by Feb. 20, 2018

 
Are you based in Maryland?  Thanks to a generous grant from the Town Creek Foundation, we have special travel grants still available for participants coming to the conference from Maryland.  You can find the application form on our website:
Maryland Travel Grants
Join us as a sponsor/exhibitor for this capacity-building convening!


Your sponsorship helps make the conference accessible to people working within limited municipal budgets by keeping it affordable.


Further information:
Local Solutions 2018 Sponsors/Exhibitors Brochure