Collaborative Research: Planning: CHIRRP: Integrating Participatory Urban Modeling and Climate Projections for Community-Driven Flooding Resilience

Coastal flooding in the Great Lakes region poses significant risks to communities, infrastructure and ecosystems due to fluctuating lake levels, heavy rainfall, and coastal erosion. These stressors that are expected to worsen with climate change are already overwhelming stormwater systems and damaging property. They will also disproportionately affect communities suffering from historical and ongoing socioeconomic disparities and environmental injustices. This project aims to enhance the resilience of Great Lakes coastal cities by co-producing climate information with city practitioners and community-based organizations (CBOs) that can support their decisions to better prevent, prepare and adapt to these stressors. This will be achieved by creating an online participatory tool that integrates climate, hydrological, spatial data and participatory GIS. This decision support tool (DST) called Participatory Urban Modeling and Climate Projections for Community-Driven FlOoding Resilience (PUMP-COR) will be developed with participants in two Great Lakes cities: Benton Harbor (MI) and Milwaukee (WI). It will allow participants to better understand and visualize their risks and make choices that can influence the implementation of solutions. By directly engaging CBOs and city practitioners, this project will broaden and diversify participation in both cities and cultivate more inclusive development decisions that can be generalized to other decisions and geographies. Specifically, the project will: 1) explore the viability of integrating three existing modeling efforts (across climate, hydrological and spatial information) to inform decision-making that builds the resilience of households, communities, and cities to flooding risks; 2) organize focus groups with CBOs and city practitioners to better understand different definitions and perceptions of resilience, risk, equitable and just solutions, and to provide feedback to each other and to the research team about their preferences and aspirations for PUMP-COR; and 3) build a network of researchers, CBOs, city practitioners, professional associations, and regional organizations to engage in the co-production process for the ongoing project and for a future broader proposal based on what can be learned from the planning grant. This broader proposal and engagement with communities will focus on how online DSTs can increase the number of people, communities and cities using PUMP-COR to build resilience of coastal cities. The outcomes will include improved decision-making for flood resilience, enhanced community participation, and better climate information tailored to the needs of diverse decision-makers. This research will significantly contribute to the fields of climate modeling, participatory GIS, and the science of actionable knowledge, offering innovative solutions for climate adaptation and resilience. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.