Collaborative Research: Planning: CHIRRP: Science to Advance Freshwater Ecosystem and Community Resilience in the Appalachians (SAFER Apps)

Flooding is rapidly becoming one of the most widely experienced, deadliest, and costly natural disasters threatening our economy, well-being, and security. While considerable effort has gone into improving flood forecasting models and mapping flood inundation hazards, mountainous settings pose unique challenges. Conditions that generate floods in mountain settings can be difficult to predict and model.

Flood hazards in mountain settings are often characterized by erosional hazards that cascade through steep terrain and narrow stream and river corridors, with significant impacts on property, infrastructure, lives, and riverine ecosystems. To develop and employ actionable solutions to address the threat of mountain flooding, a deeper understanding is needed regarding the limits of existing flood forecasting services in complex mountain terrain, the needs of local communities experiencing catastrophic flooding, and the opportunities that nature-based solutions (NBS) afford for improving flood resiliency.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer low-cost and strategic pathways to flood resilience by employing the services provided by intact forests, floodplains, wetlands, and river corridors as an alternative to engineered solutions to flood mitigation.

This planning grant brings together Earth systems scientists, conservation organizations, government officials and planners, and other academic partners to consider the flood resiliency needs of communities, drawing upon examples in the Appalachian Mountains. The project objectives are to (1) assess community-based needs for improved flood hazard prediction, (2) explore the potential of new data sets and data driven modeling approaches to improve flood risk mapping, and (3) develop a pathway for the acceleration of science-based and community-engaged resiliency solutions.

The objectives will be achieved through a series of knowledge-sharing webinars, field visits, participatory mapping exercises, and a grant-writing workshop. The overarching goal is to develop capacity for the integration of flood risk prediction science and NBS deployment that is responsive to community needs and builds resilience for highly vulnerable, rural communities in mountain regions.

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.