SCC-CIVIC-PG Track A: Community-Science Partnership to Enhance Stormwater Adaptation under Climate Change

Rapid urbanization under conditions of climate change accelerates stormwater flooding, often occurring beyond the capacity of communities to respond with traditional infrastructure. Blue-green infrastructure (BGI) is a globally recognized “nature-based” alternative that supports urban climate-change resilience through landscape-scale management. A grand challenge for adapting to climate change, especially in urban areas, lies in how to innovate, mobilize, and sustain knowledge at the community level to enhance benefits of BGI in ways that are people-centric and socially equitable. The project contributes to growing scholarship on emerging equity principles in the field of urban greening and examines how communities can effectively engage in critical components of climate adaptation to accommodate different needs and unequal opportunities across urban areas. Scholarship on BGI maintenance in the U.S. highlights how the challenges of funding, expertise, and equity can undermine efforts to sustain BGI investments over time. Therefore, new seek to develop new forms of community-engaged BGI governance practices and processes (including monitoring and maintenance) that can enhance stormwater adaptive capacity and climate resilience in ways that do not increase burdens of labor or reproduce patterns of urban inequality. While our focus is BGI in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, a rapidly growing region facing increased stormwater flooding due to climate change, this project seeks to develop scalable innovations that can enhance community participation in other urban contexts.

The major goal of this planning grant is to strengthen an emergent community of practice that will co-create a community-scientific research observatory dedicated to enhancing urban adaptation to climate change. Working with community partners and cooperative extension volunteers and specialists, we have identified three project objectives. First, we will establish a community-science working group based on existing and emerging community partnerships. Second, we will design, execute, and assess a pilot community-based green infrastructure asset management (C-GAM) tool. We will modify existing green asset management tools using community engagement (co-development, implementation, validation, reflection/dissemination) to co-create other societal criteria (i.e., equity, resiliency) to evaluate BGI implementation. Third, we will convene a multi-stakeholder workshop to co-design the Stage 2 proposal. The project’s C-GAM training and implementation plan contributes to STEM education to enhance community knowledge of urban ecology, urban water, and BGI engineering. Our project’s educational and assessment materials will be designed for wider dissemination through community-ambassadors to increase community knowledge and engagement with BGI.

This project is in response to the Civic Innovation Challenge program—Track A. Living in a changing climate: pre-disaster action around adaptation, resilience, and mitigation—and is a collaboration between NSF, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy.

Collaborators: Wendy Jepson (PI: Texas A&M Agrilife), Fouad Jaber (Texas A&M Agrilife), Lauren Fischer (U North Texas), Rebecca Bowling (Texas A&M Agrilife)

Funded by NSF S&CC: Smart & Connected Communities.