About This Project
Sea-level rise threatens low-lying vulnerable coastal communities due to climate change. Due to SLR and related climate-related hazards, managing critical infrastructure will progressively challenge authorities. This experiment explores adaptation options for critical infrastructure, using a dynamic adaptive pathway planning (DAPP) approach. Involving key local stakeholders, DAPP can be used for developing a comprehensive area-specific adaptation plan.
Ask the Scientists
Join The DiscussionWhat is the context of this research?
Global mean sea level is projected to rise between 0.43 m and 0.84 m by 2100. Coastal risk is dynamic due to constant changes in coastal infrastructure, community livelihoods, agriculture, and habitability. Accordingly, attempts to reduce risk and plan for the future are often contested between various adaptation preferences. With that comes the need for governance arrangements and decision tools that incorporate both the changing risk profiles and future uncertainties, to enable timely and cost-effective adaptation. In DAPP, a plan is conceptualized as a series of actions taken over time. In order to formulate a good plan, it is necessary to first identify policy actions and adaptation tipping points.
What is the significance of this project?
About 10% of the world’s population lives in coastal zones that are less than 10 meters above mean sea level. SLR poses the risk of coastal inundation, erosion, and availability of freshwater. Decision-makers face deep uncertainties regarding the impacts of climate change. Also, societal perspectives and preferences may change over time, including stakeholders’ interests and their evaluation of plans. To cope with these uncertainties, dynamic adaptive policies that can be changed over time are required. This project aims to recognize present and future uncertainties, evaluate vulnerable assets and devise alternative solutions for a dynamic adaptive plan. It will help authorities identify near-term actions that need to be taken, monitor the progress and inform future decisions.
What are the goals of the project?
The goal of this project is to make a prototype of a decision-making tool for an area in Boston where dynamic adaptive strategies for sea level rise are being devised to reduce future disruption from coastal flooding, signal land use changes early, inform maintenance, and allow for gradual budget adjustments by the agencies that can manage expenditure over time. I want to present this stepwise process in a pathway form that can be communicated spatially and visually to address the issues associated with SLR risks and uncertainties by involving the related stakeholders.
Budget
The two facilitated workshops will allow for community engagement and creating awareness of risk to critical infrastructure due to the hazards of SLR. Local expert knowledge combined with community input can minimize chances of water infrastructure can be retreated in the face of ongoing SLR. Based on input from the workshop signals, triggers and adaptation thresholds will be identified. These will be used to create an an adaptation pathways map which will later be shared with community members in the second workshop. Promotional items will be required to spread awareness about the workshop like posters and brochures. Support staff will also be required for administrative help in organizing the workshop. Since participants will spend long durations in the workshop, catering will also have to be provided.
Project Timeline
The project will go on for approximately 6 months. In the first month a research advisory committee will be formed. In the second month, the research site will be analyzed and a methodology will be developed. In the third month a workshop will be organized to form the foundation of the adaptation plan. In the fifth month the adaptation map will be produced and shared with the stakeholders and the public in the sixth month.
Jun 01, 2021
Establishing a Research Advisory Committee (RAC)
Jul 01, 2021
Refining methodology and site analysis
Aug 01, 2021
Organizing a workshop involving 15 stakeholders where methodology will be explained to participants and adaptation options that reflect their interests will be identified
Oct 01, 2021
Producing an adaptation map which contains the final set of area-specific pathways for the City of Boston
Nov 01, 2021
Organizing a second workshop to share the results and explain the technical aspects of the research to stakeholders
Meet the Team
Shailee Desai
I am a first year PhD student in Environmental Sciences at UMass Boston and my research is focused on nature-based solutions for building coastal resilience. I have a Master’s degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Northeastern University. I am interested in resilience planning, coastal management, and flood risk vulnerability assessment.
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