David Kaye
University of New Hampshire, NH·Social Science
Climate science often fails to translate into action, in part because the people most exposed to flooding and water shortages are rarely part of the conversation where decisions get made. This project tackles water security in vulnerable communities and how it intersects with two other kinds of risk: failure of critical physical infrastructure, networks and services, and threats to people's living standards.
- Fields
Social Science
Earth & Environmental Science
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
water security
climate change adaptation
climate mitigation
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Examine the shared water security and livelihood risks facing vulnerable communities in four watersheds in the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom, where aging dams, reservoirs, canals and tidal protection are failing.
- Demonstrate that applied theater decision labs, interactive performances built around design thinking, can engage communities and improve decision making on water security and climate change.
- Capture the perspectives of Indigenous people, flood-affected residents and communities losing cultural heritage to coastal erosion, alongside the voices that slow or oppose climate action, through participation in the decision labs.
More about the research
Aging water infrastructure, including dams, reservoirs, tidal protection, canals and natural flood abatement, is already affecting livelihoods and water security in four study watersheds in the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom, and the partnership examines the issues these regions share.
Why it matters
Communities facing floods, failing dams and eroding coastlines often have little say in the adaptation decisions that affect them. Applied theater decision labs could give residents, including Indigenous participants and people losing cultural heritage to the sea, a direct route into climate adaptation and mitigation planning, and give decision makers a clearer picture of both the support and the resistance that proposed water infrastructure changes will meet.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Andrew Gronewold
University of Michigan, MI·Earth & Environmental Science
Produce reliable projections of how often and how intensely climate-driven floods, droughts and related hazards will strike U.S.-Canada transboundary waters, starting with the Great Lakes, using statistical and process-based models.
Katharine Mach
University of Miami, FL·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify flood simulation technologies that most speed up modeling of flood risk under multiple flood drivers and response options while keeping accuracy, and benchmark the maximum achievable speeds.
Ming Xiao
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Engineering
Establish ground- and drone-based monitoring of permafrost change on Alaska's North Slope, and combine it with satellite remote sensing and image processing to track erosion and subsidence.
The school
University of New Hampshire: 5 labs on PI Pages, $230M a year on research, 79 research doctorates a year.
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