NSF Award
2418377
This project engages stakeholders to drive research and workforce development on equitable design and implementation of nature-based solutions (NbS). The research will be conducted around three living hubs in New Hampshire (NH), Rhode Island (RI), and Kentucky (KY). The project will make major contributions to decision-making about NbS over the next decade. Given the project's location, it will have a direct impact on disproportionately affected populations in the three living hubs. The project's community-engaged, transdisciplinary approach will empower community members as change agents for increased climate resilience. The project has the potential to change the national and international paradigms for designing and implementing socially equitable NbS. The research will contribute to improved decisions about NbS in the three jurisdictions and help to address the urgent global need for improved decision tools for climate resilience. This research will also build human and social capital through transdisciplinary knowledge transfer, as well as training and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students, post-docs, and early career faculty. A recruitment program for underrepresented students and mentorship plans for all early career personnel will significantly develop capacity for climate resilience research across the three jurisdictions while developing leadership skills and collective efficacy.<br/><br/>The overarching goal of the Equitable Nature-based Climate Solutions (ENACTS) project is to understand and quantify the influence of NbS on social equity and to conceive design principles and best practices that promote equity, alongside sustainability, resilience, and practicality. ENACTS builds capacity through new research infrastructure to identify novel methods to center equity in NbS for climate resilience. The research, supported by local knowledge, coupled with integrated social and natural sciences, engineering, art, and design, will create an ecosystem of academia, government, and communities inclusive of underserved and Indigenous groups to support more informed and equitable NbS decisions. ENACTS will make transformative advances in our understanding and capacity in designing and implementing socially equitable NbS, leading to increased community resilience against the ongoing climate crisis. This work will generate new co-produced knowledge in 1) the risk-scapes and the NbS environmental, social, and economic effect-scapes across the three living hubs and their influence on distributional equity; 2) the level of process-based equity in past and current NbS projects and its influence on NbS decision-making; 3) the preferred NbS landscape designs for different social groups; 4) the optimal siting, sizing, and timing of NbS implementations in the three living hubs; and 5) the effectiveness of various behavioral interventions, including visual aids (e.g., augmented reality tours), scientific knowledge about the optimum solution (e.g., optimization model), understanding of the cultural background of the marginalized communities (e.g., Indigenous stories, photovoice, GIS story maps), and consensus building exercises (e.g., concept mapping, COPEWELL, serious gaming).<br/><br/>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.
