RAISE: CHIRRP: Centering Equity in Coastal Community Climate Resilience

This project will work with California coastal communities to produce research and adaptation strategies that address resiliency in the face of increasing coastal flooding, storm intensity, and storm frequency. As seas rise and storms become more intense and frequent, coastal communities will see increasing disruption and loss, which will force adaptation or relocation. To lessen potential destruction and to help prepare communities for hazards, local resiliency measures need to be improved across America’s coastal regions. Creating partnerships among scientists, community groups, and policymakers will help thoroughly investigate and understand possible vulnerabilities and foster the creation and implementation of adaptation strategies that fully account for local needs. This project will increase the collective capacity of a network of ten community and community-based partners, and other actors involved with coastal adaptation. The early-career research team will simultaneously build community capacity and provide support to local and regional adaptation planning efforts currently underway by integrating cutting-edge modeling. Tools, strategies, and lessons learned from this research will be transferable to other regions. Working with two California coastal communities, Belle Haven/East Palo Alto and the Canal District, researchers will develop scenarios for future shorelines, identify knowledge gaps, and evaluate technical assistance tools and programs. The proposed work addresses urgent, necessary challenges of coastal adaptation through the merging of coastal Earth systems models, social science research into governance processes, and the knowledge and perspectives of frontline communities. This project represents a shift in coastal Earth systems model development and application by focusing on including local knowledge and perspectives. State-of-the-art Earth systems modeling will be connected to local and regional decision-making and planning for coastal climate adaptation. This project is jointly funded by the Division of Research, Innovation, Synergies, and Education in the Directorate for Geosciences and the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure through the National Discovery Cloud for Climate initiative. 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.