Assessing the adaptability of resilience models

This federal Project Grant award of $284,044.00, awarded on April 15, 2025, is funded by the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences program (CFDA 47.075). The grant supports a research project to assess the adaptability of resilience models across multiple scales in response to hazards such as hurricanes and wildfires. The project employs a mixed-method, multi-sited approach that includes public conferences, hazard mapping, risk perception surveys, and resilience plan workshops. Key products and services delivered under this grant include:

1. Crafting resilience plans at workshops that bring together scholars, students, organizations, elected officials, and community leaders to share knowledge on successful disaster risk reduction models.
2. Facilitating the development of a workable process to reduce vulnerability and adapt to environmental variability, with findings to be widely shared through open-access publication.
3. Utilizing sub-awards to the Haiti-based non-profit organization Fokal to oversee contracting, financial management, and reporting for activities conducted by Haitian institutions, including hosting annual conferences, facilitating community workshops, and publishing resilience plans.

Abstract

Hazards such as hurricanes or wildfires are notorious for their severity in frontline and coastal communities and their difficulty to predict and mitigate. Scientists have increasingly investigated why systemically designed models often fail to meet their objectives and reduce vulnerability. This project tests the adaptability of resilience models across multiple scales. Lessons learned from this research will be ever more important for communities facing disasters of increased intensity. Findings will be widely shared and made available open access, to improve the public?S understanding of science and the scientific method. In addition, the research offers a range of broader impacts such as integrating research and teaching and building research infrastructure. This research asks how adaptation of models from one context to another is possible, and how communities can craft resilience plans addressing local realities. This research also identifies factors that facilitate or hinder implementation. Answering these questions, this research employs a mixed-method, multi-sited approach including public conferences, hazard mapping, and risk perception surveys. Resilience plans are crafted at workshops bringing together scholars/students, organizations, elected officials and community leaders learning about other successful disaster risk reduction models. Finally, the research facilitates the development of a workable process to reduce vulnerability and adapt to environmental variability. 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.- subawards are planned for this award.