RII Track-2 FEC: Community-Driven Coastal Climate Research & Solutions for the Resilience of New England Coastal Populations

“社区驱动的沿海气候研究与解决方案(3CRS)”项目是一项重大而及时的倡议，旨在解决新英格兰低洼、有工作的滨水社区的气候变化这一紧迫问题。这些社区与海洋资源息息相关，极易受到气候变化的不利影响。由于这些社区的大部分，包括关键基础设施，预计到本世纪末将越来越多地受到滋扰性洪水的影响，并可能永久淹没在水下，因此迫切需要制定气候适应战略。该项目的重要性在于它的重点是为这类战略制定一个可扩展和可转让的框架，从而增强沿海的复原力。具体地说，该项目旨在开发知识、数据、建模和人际网络基础设施，以支持由社区驱动的新英格兰沿海气候适应中心。这与NSF促进科学进步以促进国民健康、繁荣和福利的使命直接一致。3CRS中心旨在解决和探索解决海滨社区贫困、医疗保健机会有限、基础设施不足和气候变化适应能力有限等基本问题的解决方案。除了解决这些迫在眉睫的挑战外，该项目还具有更广泛的社会效益的潜力。它的目标是推进气候弹性领域，通过早期职业科学家的指导来支持教育和多样性，并通过提高在国家经济和文化遗产中发挥关键作用的社区的弹性来造福社会。3CRS项目旨在应对气候弹性规划的三个关键研究挑战。第一个挑战是确定和衡量人类健康、福祉、宜居性、环境和其他气候脆弱性的动态变化。这涉及全面了解气候变化与影响社区复原力的各种社会经济因素之间的复杂相互作用。第二个挑战是将气候模型、产出和信息缩小到社区一级，并预测气候复原力对规划者的影响。这需要复杂的建模技术(例如，动态的和基于人工智能的)，能够将大规模的气候模型预测转化为社区一级的可操作信息。第三个挑战是扩大将数据、知识和专家网络纳入社区复原力规划过程的能力。这包括建立强大的数据收集、分析和传播系统，以及与专家网络建立牢固的关系。为了应对这些挑战，该项目将开发一个社区知识集体，它将共同产生三个主要的知识流：观测数据、社区驱动的复原力衡量标准和气候适应叙述。将部署一个新的工具--新英格兰全海岸灾害分析建模和预测系统(NE-CHAMP)，使社区能够可视化和分析当前和未来气候对关键基础设施、健康、社会经济和其他社区驱动的复原力指标的影响。在项目的最后阶段，将制作一系列共享弹性路线图，以数字方式记录制定海岸适应战略的可转移过程，从而为面临类似挑战的其他社区提供蓝图。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The "Community-Driven Coastal Climate Research & Solutions (3CRS)" project is a significant and timely initiative that addresses the pressing issue of climate change in low-lying, working waterfront communities in New England. These communities, which are deeply intertwined with ocean resources, are disproportionately vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. With large parts of these communities, including critical infrastructure, projected to be increasingly impacted by nuisance flooding and potentially permanently underwater by the end of the century, the need for climate adaptation strategies is urgent. The project's importance lies in its focus on developing a scalable and transferable framework for such strategies, thereby enhancing coastal resilience. Specifically, the project aims at developing the knowledge, data, modeling, and human network infrastructure to support a New England Hub for coastal climate resilience that is community-driven. This aligns directly with the NSF's mission to promote the progress of science to advance national health, prosperity, and welfare. The 3CRS Hub seeks to address and explore solutions for the intersect of fundamental issues of poverty, limited healthcare access, inadequate infrastructure, and limited climate change adaptation capacity in waterfront communities. Beyond addressing these immediate challenges, the project also holds potential for broader societal benefits. It aims to advance the field of climate resilience, support education and diversity through the mentorship of early career scientists, and benefit society by increasing the resilience of communities that play a crucial role in the nation's economy and cultural heritage.The 3CRS project is designed to tackle three key research challenges for climate resilience planning. The first challenge is to identify and measure dynamic changes in human health, wellbeing, habitability, environment, and other climate vulnerabilities. This involves a comprehensive understanding of the complex interplay between climate change and various socio-economic factors that influence community resilience. The second challenge is to downscale climate models outputs and information to the community level and project the impacts of climate resilience for planners. This requires sophisticated modeling techniques (e.g. dynamical and AI-based) that can translate large-scale climate models projections into actionable information at the community level. The third challenge is to expand the capacity to incorporate data, knowledge, and expert networks into community resilience planning processes. This involves building robust systems for data collection, analysis, and dissemination, as well as fostering strong relationships with expert networks. To address these challenges, the project will develop a Community Knowledge Collective, which will co-produce three primary knowledge streams: observational data, community-driven metrics of resilience, and climate adaptation narratives. A novel tool, the New England-wide Coastal Hazards Analysis Modeling and Prediction System (NE-CHAMP), will be deployed to enable communities to visualize and analyze the impacts of present and future climate on critical infrastructure, health, socio-economic, and other community-driven resilience metrics. In the final phase of the project, a series of shared resilience roadmaps will be produced that digitally document the transferable processes for developing coastal adaptation strategies, thereby providing a blueprint for other communities facing similar challenges.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.