Leading researchers at Brown University, the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, and Rhode Island Hospital are rethinking coastal community approaches to climate change impacts and adaptation. And now, thanks to a new $6 million federal grant, these Ocean State institutions will partner on ambitious, multidisciplinary five-year project to develop strategies to enhance coastal resilience, particularly during floods.
Today, U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse announced that Rhode Island will receive the federal funds through the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program. EPSCOR is designed to fulfill NSF’s mandate to promote scientific progress nationwide. Through the program, NSF establishes partnerships with government, higher education and industry that are designed to effect lasting improvements in a state’s or region’s research infrastructure, research and development (R&D) capacity and hence, its national R&D competitiveness.
This award for Rhode Island is one of 11 projects totaling $56 million in EPSCOR funding to receive NSF’s Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-2 awards.
As extreme weather events become more common and Rhode Island must face challenges due to warmer oceans and increased flooding, how do coastal communities stay resilient and rebound?
The federal funds for Community-Driven Coastal Climate Research & Solutions (3CRS) for the Resilience of New England Coastal Populations will develop a community-driven hub for knowledge, data, modeling and human network infrastructure. This project aims to gather data to answer important questions and develop strategies to enhance coastal resilience, particularly during floods.
The $6 million five-year study will support research teams, including:
- Brown University is intended to receive $2,941,689 over 5 years to carry out this project.
- University of Rhode Island is intended to receive $700,761 over 5 years to carry out this project.
- Rhode Island College is intended to receive $539,871 over 5 years to carry out this project.
- Rhode Island Hospital is intended to receive $173,195 over 5 years to carry out this project.
“This is a promising project that can help decisionmakers effectively strengthen resiliency in vulnerable coastal areas. I commend Brown, URI, RIC, and Rhode Island Hospital for collaborating on this study, which will provide valuable insight. I will continue championing EPSCOR dollars for Rhode Island and nationally and doing everything I can to strengthen our research infrastructure and help solve pressing challenges like coastal resiliency,” said Senator Reed, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee who brought the head of the NSF, Sethuraman Panchanathan, Ph.D., to Rhode Island this spring to meet with faculty at URI, Brown, RIC and other research institutions for a firsthand look at how Rhode Island-based researchers are advancing NSF-supported scientific discovery, innovation, and education.
“Rhode Islanders are seeing the effects of the climate crisis all around us – from rising sea levels to extreme weather events,” said Senator Whitehouse, who created the National Coastal Resilience Fund to invest in resiliency efforts in Rhode Island and across the country. “As we race to lead the planet to safety from climate change, we must address the urgent challenges facing coastal communities. This federal funding will allow Rhode Island’s world-class research institutions to collaborate on boosting resiliency in the Ocean State for generations.”
“The concept of the New England 3CRS Hub stems from the fact that in the past, a lot of coastal communities, sometimes in connection with the research institutions, have been addressing solution strategies for resilience on their own,” said Emanuele Di Lorenzo, a professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Brown who will serve as principal investigator. “This has led in general to a fragmented approach to coastal resilience where individual communities are trying to develop their own strategies and their is often little learning from each other, especially for underserved communities. This hubs aims at building an expert and stakeholder network of people to help waterfront communities share data, tools and human infrastructure to essentially accelerate the process of designing strategies for climate and health resilience.”
EPSCoR awards are made through merit-based proposal reviews and are designed to ensure competitive U.S. research dollars reach diverse geographic areas, including smaller states like Rhode Island.
Through his work on the Appropriations Committee, Senator Reed has led efforts to ensure Rhode Island’s EPSCoR eligibility since 2004, and now Rhode Island’s current percentage of NSF funding is one of the highest of EPSCoR-eligible states. With this latest award, Rhode Island has now received over $94 million in EPSCOR funding since 2004 for collaborative research projects.
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