Collaborating With Neighborhoods on Climate Change Resilience

December 12, 2023

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin are partnering with local community groups to help make underserved East Austin neighborhoods more resilient in the face of climate change and issues related to urban growth.

The new five-year project is led by the Jackson School of Geosciences Environmental Science Institute (ESI) with help from local community groups such as People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources (PODER). The goal of the collaboration is to bring researchers together with neighborhood residents and organizations who can best define community needs, said ESI Director Jay Banner.

“All too often, I think, outreach from science communities is: ‘We’ve come up with these research results, and here they are. Go figure out how you can best use them,’” he said. “But equally important is the expertise and knowledge base of members of the community and community organizations that know best what their community needs.”

The $7 million effort, funded by the National Science Foundation, is called Community Resilience Integrated into an Earth System Science Learning Ecosystem (CRESSLE). It involves experts from throughout UT and research in three general categories: water resources, climate resilience, and communities and landscapes.

In addition to tackling problems facing local communities, a goal of CRESSLE is to help build connections between geoscientists and diverse community groups, and vice versa. Each of the three research cohorts will include graduate students and a postdoctoral fellow, as well as faculty researchers.