Project Title

Community-Grounded Adaptation Strategies for Forest Management and Resilience to Flooding

Project Description

Climate change has intensified flooding events beyond historical levels, particularly in the past two decades. Forested areas provide essential flood protection and a range of valuable ecosystem services, including clean water supply, carbon storage and cultural significance. But rapid urbanization poses a significant threat to these ecosystems, especially across the southeastern United States. Discussions on nature-based solutions, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Interior, have underscored that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is unattainable without natural climate solutions, such as halting deforestation and wetland preservation. This project aims to address these challenges and enhance resilience by exploring the interplay between urban expansion, flood hazards and human responses involving nature-based strategies. We aim to develop a predictive framework to evaluate the effectiveness of community-informed natural adaptation strategies in reducing flood exposure under varying scenarios of environmental change.

Principal Investigators

• Georgina Sanchez, director
• Jelena Vukomanovic
• Mirela Tulbure
• Ross Meentemeyer

Expected Outcomes

• Supports natural resources managers and communities implementing proactive strategies to address the impacts of urbanization on flood-resilient ecosystems
• Maps forested lands and wetlands threatened by future urban development
• Develops a publicly accessible, user-friendly online portal for visualizing scenarios
• Increases understanding of location-specific adaptations to reduce future flood exposure

Research Methods

• Conduct model simulations of interactions between urban growth, flood hazards and human adaptive responses
• Create “what-if” policy interventions and flood adaptation scenarios
• Evaluate tradeoffs associated with different adaptation scenarios
• Engage stakeholders in knowledge co-production

About McIntire-Stennis

The McIntire-Stennis program, a unique federal-state partnership, cultivates and delivers forestry and natural resource innovations for a better future. By advancing research and education that increases the understanding of emerging challenges and fosters the development of relevant solutions, the program has ensured healthy, resilient forests and communities and an exceptional natural resources workforce since 1962.