Ingenuity for El Ingenio is a case study to address the challenges that marginalized communities in Puerto Rico suffer, mostly from natural hazards, due to settlements in high-risk areas and deteriorating infrastructure. The case study was developed by an interdisciplinary group of students from the University of Puerto Rico - Río Piedras School of Architecture and students from the Department of Civil Engineering and Surveying and the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez, as part of the course “Design-Build Project Delivery” in the RISE-UP program. The project contemplated spaces for a family/group of four people, in the neighborhood Ingenio in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, which is a community exposed to multiple natural hazards including hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. The design parameters for the project included a set budget of $40,000 USD for the construction of four temporary housing units, requirement to withstand the impact of multiple natural hazards, as well as being simple to build and be able to operate independent to power and water grids during an emergency. The resulting design provides 270 sq ft. of usable space and can partially function off the grid due to solar energy generation and water storage. Local materials were implemented, and a manual of components and suggested construction methods was developed. This experience showcases the benefits that an interdisciplinary-integrated approach to infrastructure design can have on producing rapid and efficient design solutions to challenges caused by natural hazards, in resilient and sustainable ways.
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Principles for collaborative risk communication: Reducing landslide losses in Puerto Rico
Landslides are frequent and damaging natural hazards that threaten the people and the natural and built environments of Puerto Rico. In 2017, more than 70,000 landslides were triggered across the island by heavy rainfall from Hurricane María, prompting requests by local professionals for landslide education and outreach materials. This article describes a novel collaborative risk communication framework that was developed to meet those requests and shaped the creation of a Spanish- and English-language Landslide Guide for Residents of Puerto Rico. Collaborative risk communication is defined here as an iterative process guided by a set of principles for the interdisciplinary coproduction of hazards information and communication products by local and external stakeholders. The process that supports this form of risk communication involves mapping out the risk communication stakeholders in the at-risk or disaster-affected location—in this case Puerto Rico—and collaborating over time to address a shared challenge, such as landslide hazards. The approach described in this article involved the formation of a core team of government and university partners that expanded in membership to conduct collaborative work with an informal network of hazards professionals from diverse sectors in Puerto Rico. The following principles guided this process: cultural competence, ethical engagement, listening, inclusive decision making, empathy, convergence research, nested mentoring, adaptability, and reciprocity. This article contributes to the field of risk communication and emergency management by detailing these principles and the associated process in order to motivate collaborative risk communication efforts in different geographic and cultural contexts. While the work described here focuses on addressing landslides, the principles and process are transferable to other natural, technological, and willful human-caused hazards. They may also serve as a roadmap for future partnerships among government agencies and university researchers to inform the cocreation of science education and outreach tools.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1635593
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10338637
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Emergency Management
- Volume:
- 19
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 1543-5865
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 41 to 61
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Landslides pose a devastating threat to human health, killing thousands of people annually. Human vulnerability is a crucial element of landslide risk reduction, yet up until now, all methods for estimating the human consequences of landslides rely on subjective, expert judgment. Furthermore, these methods do not explore the underlying causes of mortality or inform strategies to reduce landslide risk. In light of these issues, we develop a data‐driven tool to estimate an individual's probability of death based on landslide intensity, which can be used directly in landslide risk assessment. We find that between inundation depths of approximately 1–6 m, human behavior is the primary driver of mortality. Landslide vulnerability is strongly correlated with the economic development of a region, but landslide losses are not stratified by gender and age to the degree of other natural hazards. We observe that relatively simple actions, such as moving to an upper floor or a prepared refuge space, increase the odds of survival by up to a factor of 12. Additionally, community‐scale hazard awareness programs and training for citizen first responders offer a potent means to maximize survival rates in landslides.
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After a natural disaster, multiple disciplines need to come together to rebuild the damaged infrastructure using new paradigms. For instance, urgent restoration of services demand to abridge the projects’ schedule and provide innovative solutions, thus making collaboration and integration essential for the project’s success. Commonly, the academic preparation of scholars on infrastructure-related disciplines takes place in isolated professional domains, rarely tackling interdisciplinary problems and/or learn from the systematic research of previous experiences. In Puerto Rico, the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria has heightened awareness regarding the education on infrastructure-related disciplines to provide transdisciplinary solutions to pertinent complex challenges. This taxing context compels the academia to train a new cadre of professionals properly prepared in those STEM disciplines. Further, current public awareness of the vulnerability of the existing infrastructure creates an opportunity to recruit and prepare students to become those much-needed professionals. The present work offers the conceptual framework of a collaborative effort among Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) to develop an interdisciplinary program in resilient and sustainable infrastructure. The framework includes the development of transformational pedagogic interventions and changes that will challenge the disciplinary splits among AEC. The framework targets values and skills for inter and transdisciplinary problem solving, as well as helps smooth the transition from academic education to professional practice. To implement the initiative, the project created a collaborative platform among three campuses of the University of Puerto Rico System. Each of these campuses offers a different educational component relevant to the enriching educational initiative. We expect this approach to create a new breed of professionals ready to face the challenges posed for the development of robust infrastructure. The strategy fosters readiness in environmental design in engineering and construction through evidence-based design and inter/transdisciplinary problem solving. Thus, this research contributes to the body of knowledge by presenting a collaborative effort to train future professionals to design and build a robust infrastructure that can overcome the impact of major natural catastrophes.more » « less
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After a natural disaster, multiple disciplines need to come together to rebuild the damaged infrastructure using new paradigms. For instance, urgent restoration of services demand to abridge the projects’ schedule and provide innovative solutions, thus making collaboration and integration essential for the project’s success. Commonly, the academic preparation of scholars on infrastructure-related disciplines takes place in isolated professional domains, rarely tackling interdisciplinary problems and/or learn from the systematic research of previous experiences. In Puerto Rico, the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria has heightened awareness regarding the education on infrastructure-related disciplines to provide transdisciplinary solutions to pertinent complex challenges. This taxing context compels the academia to train a new cadre of professionals properly prepared in those STEM disciplines. Further, current public awareness of the vulnerability of the existing infrastructure creates an opportunity to recruit and prepare students to become those much-needed professionals. The present work offers the conceptual framework of a collaborative effort among Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) to develop an interdisciplinary program in resilient and sustainable infrastructure. The framework includes the development of transformational pedagogic interventions and changes that will challenge the disciplinary splits among AEC. The framework targets values and skills for inter and transdisciplinary problem solving, as well as helps smooth the transition from academic education to professional practice. To implement the initiative, the project created a collaborative platform among three campuses of the University of Puerto Rico System. Each of these campuses offers a different educational component relevant to the enriching educational initiative. We expect this approach to create a new breed of professionals ready to face the challenges posed for the development of robust infrastructure. The strategy fosters readiness in environmental design in engineering and construction through evidence-based design and inter/transdisciplinary problem solving. Thus, this research contributes to the body of knowledge by presenting a collaborative effort to train future professionals to design and build a robust infrastructure that can overcome the impact of major natural catastrophes.more » « less
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Abstract A transdisciplinary, integrated risk assessment and risk management process is particularly beneficial to the development of policies addressing risk from natural hazards. Strategies based on isolated risk assessment and management processes, guided by traditional “predict, then act” methods for decision making, may induce major regret if future conditions diverge from predictions. Analytic methods designed to identify robust solutions—those that perform satisfactorily over a broader range of future conditions—are more suitable for management of natural hazards risks, for at least three major reasons discussed within. Such approaches benefit from co‐production of knowledge to collaboratively produce adaptive, robust policies through an iterative process of dialogue between analysts, decisionmakers, and other stakeholders: exploring tradeoffs, searching for futures in which current plans are likely to fail, and developing adaptive management strategies responsive to evolving future conditions. The process leads to more effective adoption of risk management policies by ensuring greater feasibility of solutions, exploring a wide range of plausible future conditions, generating buy‐in, and giving a voice to actors with a diversity of perspectives. The second half of the article presents Louisiana's coastal master planning process as an exemplary model of participatory planning and integrated risk assessment and management. Louisiana planners have adopted a decision framework that incorporates insights from modern methods for decision making under deep uncertainty to effectively address the deep uncertainties and complexities characteristic of a variety of natural hazards and long‐range planning problems.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.5055/jem.0547
