BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES - EDUCATION ON MAJOR STORMS AND COMMUNITY RESILIENCE

Extreme storms have major impacts on communities in their path. Although many climate models predict increased frequency of heavy rains and icing events, freak storms and severe weather as a result of ongoing climate changes, the risk factors for many locales are no longer accurately predicted by historical trend analyses. In addition, variables such as time of year, tidal conditions and temperature can enhance the severity of a storm's impact. The ability for individual communities to respond to major storms, and to exhibit long-term resilience to extreme events, has always depended on their capabilities in risk assessment, management and preparedness. The rapid pace of changes within the global climate system means that old paradigms about risk may no longer apply. New risk models must take into account complex and incompletely identified earth system feedbacks. Community resilience increasingly depends on adaptation to uncertain levels of risk from weather extremes and on individual awareness of risks and adaptation systems and strategies.

To partially address these needs, we've teamed up with NSF's InTeGrate Program to develop an educational module that prepares individuals across a wide variety of disciplinary training for storm risk uncertainty. Our overall aim is to create a citizenry informed of potential risks, effective mitigation and response strategies to major storm events and to reduce individual and community demand for emergency measures. We use cross-disciplinary, systems training activities in an academic module that focuses on enhancing social resilience. The module, adaptable for use in any region, is currently under pilot testing and is expected to be available through Creative Commons license by AY 2016-17.

Module components include data and products from NOAA, NASA and the USGS related to specific events of wide importance in the U.S., Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy and the winter "Storm of the Century" in 1993. Students examine impacts of high-magnitude winter storms and explore post-event consequences, such as the catastrophic flooding during subsequent snowmelt of the 1993 storm, and changes in zoning after Hurricane Sandy. In the module, students learn to apply systems thinking to concepts of risk and resilience and apply them to their local communities.