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1. Using Virtual Reality in Sea Level Rise Planning and Community Engagement—An Overview

   https://doi.org/10.3390/w13091142  

   Calil, Juliano; Fauville, Geraldine; Queiroz, Anna; Leo, Kelly; Mann, Alyssa; Wise-West, Tiffany; Salvatore, Paulo; Bailenson, Jeremy (May 2021, Water)

   null (Ed.)

   As coastal communities around the globe contend with the impacts of climate change including coastal hazards such as sea level rise and more frequent coastal storms, educating stakeholders and the general public has become essential in order to adapt to and mitigate these risks. Communicating SLR and other coastal risks is not a simple task. First, SLR is a phenomenon that is abstract as it is physically distant from many people; second, the rise of the sea is a slow and temporally distant process which makes this issue psychologically distant from our everyday life. Virtual reality (VR) simulations may offer a way to overcome some of these challenges, enabling users to learn key principles related to climate change and coastal risks in an immersive, interactive, and safe learning environment. This article first presents the literature on environmental issues communication and engagement; second, it introduces VR technology evolution and expands the discussion on VR application for environmental literacy. We then provide an account of how three coastal communities have used VR experiences developed by multidisciplinary teams—including residents—to support communication and community outreach focused on SLR and discuss their implications. 

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2. Eco-Solutioning: The Design and Evaluation of a Curricular Unit to Foster Students’ Creation of Solutions to Address Local Socio-Scientific Issues

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.642320  

   Songer, Nancy Butler; Ibarrola_Recalde, Guillermo D (March 2021, Frontiers in Education)

   The global pandemic and climate change have led to unprecedented environmental, social, and economic challenges with interdisciplinary STEM foundations. Even as STEM learning has never been more important, very few pre-college programs prepare students to address these challenges by emphasizing socio-scientific issue (SSI) problem solving and the engineering design of solutions to address local phenomena. The paper discusses the design and evaluation of a pre-college, SSI curricular unit where students expand their learning by creating solutions to increase biodiversity within local urban neighborhoods. The learning approach, which we call eco-solutioning, builds from current vision and policy documents in STEM education emphasizing phenomenon-centric instructional materials, science investigations, and engineering design. The paper outlines design principles for creating an eco-solutioning instructional unit that guides young students to: collect and analyze data on local organisms, use an engineering design approach to craft solutions to increase local biodiversity, and present their solutions to local city planners and community members. Two cycles of research studies evaluated student learning using paired t-tests. Results demonstrated significant pre-post learning outcomes in both research cycles. A third research cycle in the form of a summer extension program supported students as they implemented their local solutions. Conclusions highlight design principles for the successful creation of SSI curricular units centered on local environmental issues of interest to students, teachers, and stakeholders. 

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3. The Political Complexity of Coastal Flood Risk Reduction: Lessons for Climate Adaptation Public Works in the U.S.

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001575  

   Rasmussen, D_J; Kopp, Robert_E; Shwom, Rachael; Oppenheimer, Michael (February 2021, Earth's Future)

   Abstract Coastal climate adaptation public works, such as storm surge barriers and levees, are central elements of several current proposals to limit damages from coastal storms and sea‐level rise in the United States. Academic analysis of these public works projects is dominated by technocratic and engineering‐driven frameworks. However, social conflict, laws, political incentives, governance structures, and other political factors have played pivotal roles in determining the fate of government‐led coastal flood risk reduction efforts. Here, we review the ways in which politics has enabled or hindered the conception, design, and implementation of coastal risk reduction projects in the U.S. We draw from the literature in natural hazards, infrastructure, political science, and climate adaptation and give supporting examples. Overall, we find that (1) multiple floods are often needed to elicit earnest planning; (2) strong and continuous leadership from elected officials is necessary to advance projects; (3) stakeholder participation during the design stage has improved outcomes; (4) legal challenges to procedural and substantive shortcomings under environmental protection statutes present an enduring obstacle to implementing megastructure proposals. 

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4. Coevolution of Extreme Sea Levels and Sea‐Level Rise Under Global Warming

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF003649  

   Boumis, Georgios; Moftakhari, Hamed R.; Moradkhani, Hamid (July 2023, Earth's Future)

   Abstract Design of coastal defense structures like seawalls and breakwaters can no longer be based on stationarity assumption. In many parts of the world, an anticipated sea‐level rise (SLR) due to climate change will constitute present‐day extreme sea levels inappropriate for future coastal flood risk assessments since it will significantly increase their probability of occurrence. Here, we first show that global annual maxima sea levels (AMSLs) have been increasing in magnitude over the last decades, primarily due to a positive shift in mean sea level (MSL). Then, we apply non‐stationary extreme value theory to model the extremal behavior of sea levels with MSL as a covariate and quantify the evolution of AMSLs in the following decades using revised probabilistic sea‐level rise projections. Our analysis reveals that non‐stationary distributions exhibit distinct differences compared to simply considering stationary conditions with a change in location parameter equal to the amount of MSL rise. With the use of non‐stationary distributions, we show that by the year 2050 many locations will experience their present‐day 100‐yr return level as an event with return period less than 15 and 9 years under the moderate (RCP4.5) and high (RCP8.5) representative concentration pathways. Also, we find that by the end of this century almost all locations examined will encounter their current 100‐yr return level on an annual basis, even if CO₂concentration is kept at moderate levels (RCP4.5). Our assessment accounts for large uncertainty by incorporating ambiguities in both SLR projections and non‐stationary extreme value distribution parameters via a Monte Carlo simulation. 

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5. Designing Coastal Adaptation Strategies to Tackle Sea Level Rise

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.740602  

   Bongarts Lebbe, Théophile; Rey-Valette, Hélène; Chaumillon, Éric; Camus, Guigone; Almar, Rafael; Cazenave, Anny; Claudet, Joachim; Rocle, Nicolas; Meur-Férec, Catherine; Viard, Frédérique; et al (November 2021, Frontiers in Marine Science)

   Faced with sea level rise and the intensification of extreme events, human populations living on the coasts are developing responses to address local situations. A synthesis of the literature on responses to coastal adaptation allows us to highlight different adaptation strategies. Here, we analyze these strategies according to the complexity of their implementation, both institutionally and technically. First, we distinguish two opposing paradigms – fighting against rising sea levels or adapting to new climatic conditions; and second, we observe the level of integrated management of the strategies. This typology allows a distinction between four archetypes with the most commonly associated governance modalities for each. We then underline the need for hybrid approaches and adaptation trajectories over time to take into account local socio-cultural, geographical, and climatic conditions as well as to integrate stakeholders in the design and implementation of responses. We show that dynamic and participatory policies can foster collective learning processes and enable the evolution of social values and behaviors. Finally, adaptation policies rely on knowledge and participatory engagement, multi-scalar governance, policy monitoring, and territorial solidarity. These conditions are especially relevant for densely populated areas that will be confronted with sea level rise, thus for coastal cities in particular. 

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