The Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC), funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Office of University Programs, is funding one of the new federal actions last month as part of the Obama administration’s recognition of the role of Resilient Design Education in a resilient future.
The announced action, a literature review and landscape survey by the CRC, will examine the established state-of-the-art in the science and education of resilient design.
Conducting a survey of the current state-of-the-art in science and education is an important first step toward advancing any academic discipline, OUP Director Matthew Clark said.
“Recent events have shown that we need the best scientists and engineers to be focused on improving resilience to disasters, and that starts with research and education,” he said. “To save lives, property and money, there are no better investments.”
The study will include identifying science and education approaches that integrate resilient design across disciplines such as mathematics, economics, engineering, architecture, urban planning, community planning, climate science, risk science, and social science. For example, a program that combines architectural design with engineering and climate science. The survey will also identify interdisciplinary approaches to designing to uncertainty.
Coastal Resilience Center Director Dr. Gavin Smith said the study would identify best practices being taught in design-based curricula, identify where gaps exist, and propose improvements.
“The losses associated with natural hazards and disasters continue to rise in the United States and around the world,” Dr. Smith said. “In an era of climate change, old ways of thinking about where and how we build in relation to hazards will not suffice. We need new ways of designing communities, cities, and regions to reflect the latest collective understanding of risk, vulnerability, and uncertainty and based on that understanding, advance disaster resilience.”
Study results will be posted at https://hsuniversityprograms.org and http://coastalresiliencecenter.unc.edu.
For additional information about the DHS COEs, visit DHS S&T Centers of Excellence.
The White House announcements are available at the following links:
- White House Fact Sheet: Obama Administration Highlights Opportunities for Building Community Climate Resilience across the Nation
- Blog Post: Designing for a Resilient Future
Watch the “Designing for a Climate-Smart Future” panel from the Frontiers Conference here: http://whitehousefrontiers.pitt.edu.