Resilient Futures Podcast

Big, leafy shade trees, burbling creeks, and access to recreation in beautiful natural areas: most people intuitively know that these kinds of natural amenities create pleasant communities, and houses located close to these kinds of resources tend to sell for more than those without. What folks often aren't thinking about is the fact that these resources have other benefits too--including filtering stormwater, sequestering carbon, and cooling neighborhoods. But how can we use policy to help encourage developers to adopt these policies from the start? And how can policy backfire in helping create equitably distributed natural resources for communities?

Michael Drescher, Associate Professor in the School of Planning and Adam Skoyles, PhD student at the University of Waterloo, joined host Alysha Helmrich to discuss these questions and more.

Drescher is the Director of the Residential Development Impact Scorecard for the Environment (RISE) project, which "Aims to better understand the longer-term impacts of urban residential developments on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and seeks to measure the effectiveness of GHG mitigation efforts of green infrastructure." Learn more about how RISE is working to help institute permanent changes in the development sector through their scorecard on the podcast!

Lauren McPhillips didn't always dream of being a professor, but she knew she loved solving problems.

After earning three degrees in Earth systems science and environmental engineering at Cornell University, McPhillips completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Arizona State University, where she met our host Alysha. Now, she's working on ecological and water resources engineering problems from green stormwater infrastructure to solar implementation. In her position as a researcher and assistant professor at Penn State's Institute for Energy & the Environment, she studies how best to implement solar power across ecosystems while preserving ecosystem services in proposed solar fields.

Solar farms get a lot of pushback due to their potential to interrupt ecosystems, whether they're just taking up important habitat space or actually causing harm through increased erosion or stormwater runoff. But McPhillips argues that, when done carefully, solar power could be just the nature-positive energy solution we need.

Lauren's Haiku:
Solar energy
Can keep nature's benefits
Could be a win-win

Guest Bio: https://iee.psu.edu/people/lauren-mcphillips
McPhillips' Lab Website: https://sites.psu.edu/lmcphillips/

Water is a natural resource all of us rely on, but there's a lot of thought and work that goes into being able to turn on your tap. How do we make sure water is accessible to everyone? Who does a water source belong to? And why is getting water out West so complicated?

This month, hosts Alysha and Todd are joined by Dr. Ben Rachunok, an assistant professor at the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at NC State University. Rachunok studies how communities evaluate and respond to water rights, climate risk and natural hazards. Costs of water and climate action are not equally distributed across space, and low-income households often pay a higher price for water access- and during periods of water scarcity.

With examples from the Carolinas to California, the group explores the surprising interconnections in the world of water rights and affordability, the role of policy in risk management, and how at-risk communities manage climate threats.

Check out the recent paper they discuss in this episode: Socio-hydrological drought impacts on urban water affordability (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-022-00009-w)

And this "companion paper" for more context: The unequal burdens of water scarcity (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-022-00016-x)


Ben's haiku:

Droughts raise water's price
Low-income homes bear the cost
Thirst deepens the gap


Bio: https://ise.ncsu.edu/people/barachun/

Introducing Dr. Brian Bledsoe, Director of the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Georgia and farmer, guitar player, and dad (not in that order.)

Our hosts Alysha Helmrich and Todd Bridges join Bledsoe in reviewing his lifelong commitment to research and interdisciplinary collaboration. His career has largely focused on river management and hydrology, leading him to work not just with engineers but ecologists, economists, geologists, lawyers and more. When he proposed a new institute at UGA focusing on natural solutions for infrastructure problems, he found a large community of interest that confirmed just how critical interdisciplinary expertise was for resilience.

Bledsoe described the "tremendous potential" nature-based solutions have to change how we approach development. His own mission in the movement is "to act as a connector of people who are committed to rethinking infrastructure." IRIS itself is meant to adapt to needs of the researchers, stakeholders and students that comprise it, but Bledsoe hopes that the institute can act as a lighthouse for natural infrastructure solutions.

He explains how IRIS is promoting this work for their large community of students and partners, and calls on practitioners of the IRIS mission to be "relentless listeners," sharing knowledge while learning from others. Listen now to learn more about IRIS's ongoing work on nature-based solutions!


Brian's poems:

When in doubt,
Don’t just build it stout-
Spread it out!

Bend, don’t break
Hard and strong will fail
Green sapling.


Dr. Brian Bledsoe, UGA IRIS: https://iris.uga.edu/iris-people/brian-bledsoe-p-e/

Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems: https://iris.uga.edu/

IRIS's new Natural Infrastructure Certificate: https://iris.uga.edu/natural-infrastructure-certificate/

ASCE's statement on NbS: https://www.asce.org/advocacy/policy-statements/ps575---nature-based-solutions

IRIS's NbS Job Board: https://iris.uga.edu/the-iris-job-board/

Check out this past episode that also discusses interdisciplinary resilience:
https://iris.uga.edu/2023/11/15/resilient-futures-podcast-episode-2-promoting-resilience-interdisciplinary-expertise-and-collaboration/

This month, our host Alysha Helmrich and her guest Lynn Abdouni are coming to you live from halfway across the world.

This pair of UGA engineering professors recently visited Doha, Qatar for a meeting about the Proactive Resilience Plan (PReP), a collaboration between UGA, Texas A&M, and the Qatar Foundation. During their trip, they took a moment to chat about urban morphology: "the study of the buildings, the streets, and the spaces in between them."

"We're talking about the urban fabric- it's alive," Dr. Abdouni said. "The streets are for walking, but they're also for meandering to shop, for having impromptu conversations, for chasing after pigeons- whatever you want to do, it's for multiple uses."

Abdouni's interest in this topic started early. She grew up in a semi-rural area of a postwar Lebanon, and noticing where features like sidewalks were (or weren't) placed inspired her to connect to places through urban design. By designing public spaces with humans in mind, we can foster personal connections to place and more flexible, long-lasting cities.

"I'm obsessed with anything mundane and boring- gas stations, take me there; parking lots, I love them- anything boring," she said. "You take some of these mundane places where we spend a lot of time, and you start thinking about them as, 'what else could this be?'"

Listen now to hear all the thoughts, feelings, and even some controversial takes on urban design, such as the correct parking-spots-per-bowling-lane ratio and why the San Antonio Riverwalk is the best riverwalk.

Lynn's Haiku (co-authored by Alysha):

Flex the space, anew
Human is the center, now:
Past, future, combined.


Lynn's other poem, "Urban Morphology: A Checklist":

Urban morphology, a checklist:
Flex,
humanize,
imagine.


Links:

Dr. Lynn Abdouni: https://engineering.uga.edu/team_member/lynn-abdouni/

Dr. Abdouni's new publication, "Bridging the Gap: Morphological Mapping of the Beqaa’s Vernacular Built Environment": https://cpcl.unibo.it/article/view/16887/17779

Read more about the Proactive Resilience Plan (PReP): https://research.uga.edu/research-insights/proactive-resilience-plan-prep-an-integrated-framework-applied-to-critical-economic-sectors-bjorn-birgisson/

This month, we're welcoming practitioners from Atlanta Regional Commission: Katherine Zitsch, Deputy COO, and Jon Philipsborn, Climate and Resilience Manager.

Regional commissions work on many subject areas across a metropolitan area, from community development and transportation to water security and climate change. At ARC, resilience is a key defining factor in how they make decisions around all of these topics and more. In this episode, hosts Alysha and Todd and their guests discuss how ARC is helping Atlanta tackle big development questions, challenges and opportunities.

The group also tackles larger questions like the role of government, specifically local governments, in engineering and environmental decisions, as well as specific projects ARC is working on to solve problems and build relationships across Atlanta.

"What's interesting about resilience is that everybody comes at it differently. Every city is in a different space, and every county is in a different space, and what we're trying to do at ARC is leverage the ones that are ahead towards helping the ones that are interested, but haven't had the space to get there yet."

Both guests also responded to our usual request for a haiku about their episode's subject matter, despite some debate about syllables...

Katherine's poem:

Atlanta's future
Knitting our resilience
Bridges to new paths

Jon's poem:

Disasters happen
Our choices influence the impact
Future is open

Learn more about Atlanta Regional Commission here.

This month, anthropologist and historian Dr. Eric Cline and USACE research social scientist Dr. Ben Trump come together with hosts Alysha and Todd to explore large-scale regional destabilization and collapse in the Late Bronze Age.

Around 1200 B.C., an interconnected network of eight large, thriving civilizations collapsed in a matter of decades. Dr.s Cline and Trump wanted to explore how this collapse came about, whether the civilizations could have predicted or prevented it, and what resilience strategies some of these civilizations exhibited.

"They went down. There's no reason to suspect that we won't as well... It would be absolutely hubristic to think that we would be the first ones that are immune from that."

We promise it's not all that ominous. Listen to learn more about what these researchers describe as a "poly-crisis," and how we can learn from it today to be more resilient to environmental, economic and social disturbances, and how recovery from collapse takes place.


Dr. Eric Cline, Professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and of Anthropology; Director of the GWU Capitol Archaeological Institute: https://cnelc.columbian.gwu.edu/eric-h-cline

Dr. Ben Trump, Research Social Scientist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-trump-ba062523

Check out the paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378023001589/pdf

Check out Dr. Cline's book, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, here: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691208015/1177-bc

Preorder Dr. Cline's upcoming sequel, After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations, here: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691192130/after-1177-bc

You can also preorder the graphic novel version of 1177 B.C., coming soon: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691213026/1177-bc 


Ben's Haiku:

   Complexity's cost.
   Dependency's brief fragility.
   Resilience is key.

Eric's Haiku(s):

   Bronze realms crumble,
   empires fade in twilight's grasp,
   ages mourn their fall.

   Civilizations wane,
   bronze echoes in silent ruins,
   time's shadow devours.    

   Bronze echoes shatter,
   civilizations entwine,
   silent ruins weep.

This month features a special guest. The Honorable Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, visited UGA for the Southeast Defense Communities Resilience Workshop this week. During her busy visit to Athens, she stopped by to chat with Alysha and Todd about climate resilience in the U.S. Army: on military bases, in outreach projects and construction, and overseeing climate policies.

Ms. Jacobson is an experienced environmental lawyer who previously served in the Department of Justice and at private law firms in Washington, D.C. In this episode, she describes the importance of resilience in the military and its projects, and how (and why!) the Army is building a better standard of resilience.

Our guest described it best: "It is a national security imperative to maintain resilient installations."


Links:

Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment: https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2022/04/21/3c9c5f77/hon-rachel-jacobson-s-bio.pdf

Helpful links from the ASA (IE&E), including projects and directories: https://www.army.mil/asaiee#org-ie-e-info-links

U.S. Army's Climate Strategy: https://www.army.mil/e2/downloads/rv7/about/2022_army_climate_strategy.pdf

U.S. Army's Climate Strategy Implementation Plan: https://www.army.mil/e2/downloads/rv7/about/2022_Army_Climate_Strategy_Implementation_Plan_FY23-FY27.pdf 

Alysha and Todd speak with Marta Berbés-Blázquez and Stephanie Cruz Maysonet from the University of Waterloo about the implementation of Nature-based Solutions in the Global South. NbS research has primarily taken place in the Global North. The group discusses how to build solutions that satisfy the ecological, economic and sociopolitical needs of the Global South. Berbés-Blázquez introduces the idea of "urban labs," spaces for communities to engage in place-based experimentation.  Cruz Maysonet then speaks to practitioners Tischa Muñoz Erickson (San Juan, Puerto Rico) and Mercy Borbor-Cordova (Guayaquil and Duran, Ecuador) about their work with communities and project management.

Stephanie's Haiku: 
Stream-facing houses
Pounded by sudden waters
Now a blooming front.

Resources:

• Marta's profile
• Mercy's profile
• Tischa's profile
• Stephanie's profile

Stephanie's participation was financially supported by the Waterloo Climate Institute. Learn more here: https://uwaterloo.ca/climate-institute/

Alysha and Todd are joined by Kyle McKay (USACE Research Civil Engineer) and Charles van Rees (Conservation Scientist at UGA) to discuss BIODIVERSITY- and spoiler alert, it's a lot bigger than bugs and bunnies.

Biodiversity is an ecological concept that can be difficult to quantify but is critical for environmental stability. It's also something that engineers working on nature-based projects have to keep in mind for the creation and restoration of natural infrastructure systems.

Kyle's Haiku:
Built or natural?
Intergenerational
Legacy is key.

Charles's Haiku:
Safe homes and good health, 
Butterfly, thistle, finch, fox.
Choose both: it's all life.

Todd's Haiku:
All species on Earth
Comprise the planet's machine
Pluck, pull, push, kaput

Resources:
Jointly advancing infrastructure and biodiversity conservation
The potential for nature-based solutions to combat the freshwater biodiversity crisis