When Hurricane Ida swept through Philadelphia in September of 2021, it left
behind more than a few lasting images of kayakers navigating a flooded Vine
Street Expressway. The National Hurricane Center estimated that
approximately $3 billion in damage was done in the city and surrounding
region by the record rainfalls, wind and tornadoes that came with the storm.
More than 4,000 buildings were damaged in some way and hundreds of citizens
were left without their homes.
The region is experiencing the impacts of climate change, and Philadelphians
– especially those in neighborhoods with less access to resources to cool
their homes or repair them after storms – are increasingly at-risk with each
passing year. To address these challenges, Drexel has joined forces with
local leaders on two major projects focused on climate resiliency.
The College of Engineering’s
Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Laboratory
, along with Drexel’s
Environmental Collaboratory
,
The Water Center of the University of Pennsylvania
and Villanova College of Engineering’s
Center for Resilient Water Systems
, have formed the
Academic Network to Support Urban Water Resilience
(ANSUWR). Funded by a grant from the William Penn Foundation, the ANSUWR
will work with community organizations to identify research proposals that
leverage areas of need and turn them into projects that students and
researchers at the partner universities will undertake.
Additionally, last week the Consortium for Climate Risks in the Urban
Northeast (CCRUN), released the
Climate Resilience Research Agenda for the Philadelphia Region
(CRRA), an interdisciplinary, collaborative report that will set priorities
for experts and officials studying and acting on the effects of climate
change in the area. The research agenda is the result of a collaboration
between Drexel, along with the City of Philadelphia, the Delaware Valley
Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), the Academy of Natural Sciences (ANS)
of Drexel University and Drexel University faculty and staff, that began in
2019, when Drexel, in response to calls from the student body to take action
on climate change, started a “Climate Year,” launching initiatives across
all levels of the University to make combating climate change central to its
institutional practices, curriculum, research and civic engagement.
“Climate change represents an unprecedented challenge to all of society, and
it will take a collaborative effort to protect ourselves from its growing
effects,” said Franco Montalto, PhD, professor of civil, architectural and
environmental engineering and one of CCRUN’s principal investigators. “It is
gratifying to know that so many individuals and organizations are willing to
work together to make sure that we are asking the right questions and making
practical, data-driven recommendations.”
The CRRA formed four working groups focused on key areas: cascading climate
hazards, health and environmental vulnerability, the built environment and
infrastructure systems, and regional climate governance and adaptive
management. Each working group brought regional practitioners,
representatives of the non-profit sector and university researchers together
to gather data, ask important questions and suggest paths forward. Of
particular concern is how climate change will affect different populations
in different ways – some of Philadelphia’s lower income neighborhoods are at
higher risk of
feeling the burden of hotter summers
, for example, than others.
“The lived experience of people living in neighborhoods that are already
experiencing these outcomes is as valuable as any data that we could
gather,” Montalto said. “It is critical that we partner with them and build
on the work that they are already doing.”
The CRRA and ANSUWR, Montalto stressed, are just the beginning of the work
that must be done to protect the Philadelphia region from higher
temperatures, flooding, water quality issues and other direct effects of
climate change. New projects and initiatives will be announced in the coming
months.
“We invite all who read the research agenda or who interact with the
research centers in the network to become part of the process,” he said.
“Only by working together can we address a problem of this magnitude.”