KINGSTON, R.I. – Sept. 10, 2024 – Last month’s floods in southern New England made national news, damaging property and impacting lives. As once in a thousand years weather events happen more often, could nature-based solutions help?
A new $6 million project will bring New England researchers together with peers in Kentucky to answer that question and design and apply nature-based solutions for climate resilience.
URI’s Soni Pradhanang, professor of geosciences, will lead ENACTS (Equitable NAture-based ClimaTe Solutions), a four-year project supported by NSF’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), joined by Madison Jones, assistant professor of professional and public writing/natural resources science, Jason Parent, assistant professor of natural resources science, and Emi Uchida, professor and department chair of environmental and natural resource economics. They will work with colleagues at the URI Coastal Institute, University of New Hampshire, Antioch University in New Hampshire, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of Louisville.
Awarded after merit-based reviews, EPSCoR awards are designed to ensure competitive U.S. research dollars reach diverse geographic areas, including smaller states like Rhode Island. ENACTS supports collaborative approaches that integrate local knowledge and social and natural sciences with engineering, art, and design to create equitable solutions that serve all communities.
Pradhanang says that flood and stormwater modeling is crucial for understanding nature-based solutions (NbS) for several reasons.
“Flood and stormwater modeling is essential for evaluating, designing, and implementing nature-based solutions effectively, ultimately contributing to safer and more sustainable communities. This project aims to enhance capacity by establishing new research infrastructure to discover innovative ways to prioritize equity in nature-based solutions for climate resilience.”
Three states, three kinds of solutions
Extreme weather events caused by climate change pose risks to everyone living near the water’s edge, and even farther inland, as last month’s events in neighboring Connecticut show.
Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Kentucky — the three states represented in the partnership — have all experienced intense rainfall, severe storms and flooding, early spring melt, warmer temperatures, and seasonal droughts caused by climate change. Rapid urbanization in each state has meant more residential and commercial development and impervious surfaces, leading to increased stormwater runoff and water pollution; this kind of environmental gentrification can exacerbate the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations.
The ENACTS partnership will focus on three types of nature-based solutions — tree programs, public parks, and stormwater bioretention ponds — that can offer solutions in medium-sized, socioeconomically diverse cities like Providence, Louisville, and Manchester as they contend with problems such as flooding and the development of “heat islands.”
ENACTS builds on an existing successful collaboration between New Hampshire and Rhode Island, integrating expertise from a wide range of STEAM disciplines to advance climate resilience. Both states have experienced rapid urbanization in recent decades, leading to increased stormwater runoff, water pollution, and environmental gentrification, intensifying climate change’s impacts.
In this new partnership, technology will empower local residents to be a part of the process and contribute to the design of solutions.
Jones, who directs the DWELL Lab at URI, says 3D models of nature-based solutions will be provided to community members to include their feedback on designs for stormwater mitigation. “The idea is to bring co-creation into the process of landscape design,” he says, “cultivating environmental literacy in local communities while also fostering collaboration. I think these partnerships will help effect larger-scale changes in how we think about the relationships between climate resilience, infrastructure, and local communities.”
“We want to bring more awareness to the issue,” Pradhanang adds. “All parts of the water cycle are going through change. Based on climate change projections, we expect that New England will have more extreme weather in the future. Awareness and outreach will help.”
EPSCoR at URI
URI has received an additional EPSCoR award this year. Uchida, who will be examining the economics of all three states for the ENACTS project, was also awarded $1.5 million for Risks, Impacts, & Strategies for Coastal Communities: Advancing Convergent Science to Support Climate Change Adaptation & Resilience.
Rhode Island’s congressional delegation hailed the NSF’s EPSCoR program’s latest awards to Rhode Island.
“EPSCoR research helps advance scientific understanding, informs decision making, and helps us develop regional solutions to the impacts of climate change. I commend URI for working together and teaming up with other leading universities on these critical projects,” said U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, who has led efforts to ensure Rhode Island’s EPSCoR eligibility and helped direct nearly $100 million in funding for such collaborative projects to the Ocean State.
“Rhode Island’s world-class institutions are on the leading edge of research and innovation, and are well-positioned to strengthen our defenses from climate change,” added U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. “This funding will help URI faculty develop smart, regional strategies to build resiliency, and help lead our planet to climate safety.”
Visit the Rhode Island NSF EPSCoR homepage to learn more about the program’s support for research and broader impacts at URI and across the state.