Working Group on Physical Infrastructure Choices Packet
Table of Contents
Abstract for Physical Infrastructure Choices Working Group ............................................................1
SAGE 2014 Workshop – Overall Working Group Protocol.................................................................3
Figure 1. Graphical framework for setting working group priorities/action items4/28/14 ................. 4
Working Group Members: Physical Infrastructure Choices ..............................................................5
Framework for SAGE Conference Working Group Discussion on Local and Spatial Considerations ....9
Framework for SAGE Conference Working Group Discussion on Regional/State/National Level Policy
and Governance ...................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Abstract for Physical Infrastructure Choices Working Group
The overall goal of our network is to put forward a shared framework for better informing
resilient coastal infrastructure decisions based on physical, natural, and societal conditions. In
our grant proposal we anticipated that this resilient infrastructure framework would include
understanding communities as existing and evolving within adaptive gradients, addressing spillover and equity effects of infrastructure decisions, using evidence regarding the impacts of fastonset disasters (e.g., hurricanes, tsunamis) to improve practices and policies for chronic, slowonset phenomena (e.g. sea level rise), and tying the application of our theory to increasingly
available indicators of climate change and local conditions. As the project develops there will
certainly be other considerations that emerge from our process.
According to the US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE): "Coastal risk reduction can be achieved
through a variety of approaches, including natural or nature- based features (e.g., wetlands and
dunes), nonstructural interventions (e.g., policies, building codes and emergency response such
as early warning and evacuation plans), and structural interventions (e.g., seawalls and
breakwaters)."
For the purpose of this workshop, we will limit our discussion to natural and natural-based
features ("green" infrastructure) and engineered structural interventions ("gray"
infrastructure). Civil engineers traditionally have more experience, and likewise are generally
more comfortable, designing and constructing gray infrastructure. However, there are some
regional and cultural precedents for adopting green infrastructure (e.g., use of mango tree
groves in tropical zones for storm surge buffering), and in other areas there is an increased
public interest to include (or at least consider) green infrastructure solutions in resilient design
in order to minimize coastal risk during natural disasters. We will use this discussion as a means
of exploring the benefits and drawbacks to both green and gray infrastructure. We would like
to determine what possible improvements could be made for the future to help bridge the gap
1
between professionals in the industry regarding general awareness, technological knowledge,
and design implementation.
Consider the following questions:
1) What gray infrastructure techniques are currently available?
2) What green infrastructure techniques are currently available?
3) Classify the infrastructure techniques from Questions 1 and 2 as "standard of practice"
versus "cutting edge" or those that are less common but could be adapted for wider use.
4) What are some of the benefits and limitations associated with each of the techniques?
5) What information is currently lacking which could aid in planning and
designing infrastructure (green or gray)?
5a) What opportunities exist for research and development of green and gray
infrastructure?
5b) Are there additional outside professionals or academics currently studying these
technologies whom we should bring into the discussion?
6) What barriers exist to adapting green infrastructure into civil engineering and coastal land
use planning design? How might these be overcome?
7) What regulatory or other policy barriers exist that may prevent wider adoption of green vs.
gray infrastructure solutions to coastal adaptation challenges?
2
SAGE 2014 Workshop – Overall Working Group Protocol
The overall goals of the project are to establish a strongly connected Research and practice Learning
Community (RLC) of US and Caribbean engineers, geologists, ecologists, social scientists, planners and
policymakers with experience in analyzing, planning for and responding to chronic or catastrophic
events, and ultimately expand the network regionally and worldwide. The RLC will:
a. Develop a framework for resilient infrastructure policy making: The multidisciplinary
collaboration among the RLC members will identify the key policy-relevant data needed for
resilient infrastructure selection and use that information to develop the SAGE framework;
b. Organize existing data and coordinate future data collection: The development of the
framework will provide an organizing scheme for future collection of data.
c. Build a web of connections: SAGE activities will build new capacity connecting: existing
collaborative networks; researchers and policy-makers; disciplines, NGOs, universities, and
government bodies; geographic regions; all to facilitate policy-relevant research and the uptake
of research findings into NGO and State policies.
d. Identify future research themes: Working through the framework will allow us to develop the
relationships and shared understandings as well as policy insight needed to identify next-phase
research to enable resilient, sustainable coastal policy and infrastructure.
The workshop will use a working group model that will result in tangible, prioritized items for both nearterm and longer-range action by SAGE members. The implementation group will be identified after the
workshop, and may include some or all members of each working group. In the process of working
group debriefings, the workshop will also provide cross-disciplinary orientation to attendees.
Specific outcomes from this year’s workshop working groups are expected to include the following:
- Preliminary identification of the most important input data parameters for infrastructure
selection across a range of situations;
- Identify current gaps in data to characterize those parameters and allow correlations among
them;
- Initial development of key characteristics of SAGE framework;
- Publication and dissemination of workshop proceedings which set the agenda for the remaining
four years of the grant, and serve as a focal point to direct future research and action item in
this area. Anticipated title: “A Framework for Coastal Resilience: Sustainable Adaptive
Gradients and Shades of Infrastructure;”
- Work plans for the year which will result in new partnerships for future research collaboration,
development of follow-on proposals for funding, and approaches to policy diffusion and uptake.
For this year, we will organize working groups along disciplinary/interest lines. The working groups are:
- Physical infrastructure choices
- National/state level policy and governance
- Local and spatial considerations
The working groups will be asked to summarize their findings from each question in their abstract and
present these briefly to the group.
3
The working groups will use Figure 1 (below) to graphically summarize their planned initiatives/action
items. Each item should be organized by the feasibility of achieving that objective or completing that
action item (horizontal access) versus the importance or impact that that objective/item would have on
the project goal. For example, if the working group decides that a particular action item is highly
achievable in a particular timeframe, and it has high importance or impact in moving the working
group’s focus forward, that item would be placed toward the upper right of the framework in Figure 1.
Examples of action items might include “Develop an online resource library” or “Write a proposal to
World Bank program on Coastal Sustainability.”
Figure 1. Graphical framework for setting working group priorities/action items2/9/16
Manageability /Achievability
Medium
High
V high
Low
Action item
or initiative
#1
Medium
Action item
or initiative
#2
Low
Importance
High
Action item
or initiative
#3
V High
4
Working Group Members: Physical Infrastructure Choices
Group Leader: Farrokh Nadim
Dr Farrokh Nadim is Technical Director at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI, www.ngi.no),
coordinator of the International Centre for Geohazards (ICG, www.geohazards.no) and adjunct professor
at both the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and University of Oslo (UiO). He has
a BSc in structural engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Iran, and MSc (1980) and ScD
(1982) in civil engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr Nadim joined NGI in
September 1982. His major fields of work are related to geohazards (landslides, earthquakes and
tsunamis), risk and reliability analysis, geotechnical earthquake engineering, and offshore foundation
engineering. He is the author or co-author of over 150 scientific publications, and a former Chair of
Technical Committee 32 of ISSMGE: "Engineering practice of risk assessment and management". He is
the Norwegian representative at European Association for Earthquake Engineering (EAEE), the past
president in Norwegian Society for Earthquake Engineering, a member of ISO Panel 5 for Development
of Seismic Design Guidelines for Offshore Structures and ISO TC98 for Seismic Actions on Geotechnical
Works. Dr Nadim is one of the Lead Authors of IPCC’s Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme
Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX).
Christine Brandon
I'm a fifth year PhD candidate in the Geosciences Department, University of Massachusetts. I plan to
defend my dissertation later this year. The dissertation work involves measuring the grain size
distribution of sediment deposits left by hurricane storm surges to glean information about the
magnitude of the storm surge which deposited them. In particular, I'm studying the deposit left by
Hurricane Sandy and comparing it to the other hurricanes that have affected New York City to
determine how often a storm like Sandy affects this area. I have a Master's degree from Boston
University (2009) and my thesis is titled "Numerical modeling of the hydrology of a sub-glacial channel."
My Bachelor's degree is from UMass Amherst (2007) where I double majored in physics and astronomy.
Don DeGroot
Dr. Don J. DeGroot is a geotechnical engineer and professor in the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He received his Doctor of
Science in Civil Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989. His teaching, research,
and consultancy expertise is in soil behavior with a focus on field and laboratory measurements for
geotechnical engineering site characterization programs. He has been a Principal/Co-Principal
Investigator on numerous projects that included research on drilling and sampling of soils, in situ testing,
laboratory measurement of soil behavior, and selection of soil design parameters. He was PI of the
recently completed $2.4 million US National Science Foundation project on "Developing International
Protocols for Offshore Sediments and their Role in Geohazards: Characterization, Assessment, and
Mitigation." He has published refereed research findings in the major geotechnical engineering journals
and has presented several invited Keynote and State-of-the-Art papers at national and international
conferences. He has received several UMass Amherst outstanding teaching and research awards. Other
awards include the ASCE NY MET Section GZA Lecture Award (2013); Sowers State-of-the-Art Lecture
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Award, Georgia Tech (2006); Gledden Visiting Senior Fellowship, UWA (2005); and the Research Council
of Norway Guest Researcher Fellowship (1997).
Fernando Gilbes
Fernando Gilbes-Santaella is Professor of the Geology Department in University of Puerto Rico at
Mayaguez. He was also Director of this department from 2009 to 2012. He is currently Director of the
Center for Hemispherical Cooperation in Research and Education in Engineering and Applied Science
(CoHemis). In 2002, he founded the Geological and Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory (GERS
Lab) with the mission of promoting and facilitating the education and research of remote sensing tools
applied to the Earth System Science. As biological oceanographer he has several publications on
environmental remote sensing, bio-optical properties, and coastal studies. He has a B.S. in Biology and a
M.S. in Marine Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, and a Ph.D. in Biological
Oceanography from the University of South Florida. His teaching and research experience are related
with remote sensing, biogeo-optical studies and geographic information systems. Recently he is also
developing several initiatives from CoHemis in Climate Change Education. His projects have been
sponsored by several local and federal agencies.
Paul Kirshen
Dr. Kirshen is a Civil Engineer with 30 years of experience serving as Principal Investigator of complex,
interdisciplinary, participatory research related to water resources, coastal zone, and infrastructure
management and climate variability and change. He is presently Research Professor, Environmental
Research Group of Department of Civil Engineering, and Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and
Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH. He is a Lead Author for the Fifth Assessment Report
of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Chapter 26, North America) and the 2014 US
National Climate Assessment (Coastal Zone Development and Ecosystems). He also serves on several
state committees and commissions on climate change adaptation. His research on climate change
impacts has been cited by the US Supreme Court and been presented in testimony to the US Senate
Committee on Homeland and Governmental Affairs. He works at scales ranging from local to
international. Presently is he carrying out vulnerability assessments and adaptation plans for many
municipalities in the eastern US. He has over 50 published journal articles on these topics as well as
many book chapters and reports. He received his ScB in Engineering from Brown University and his MS
and PhD in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sissy Nicoloau
Sissy Nikolaou, PhD, PE, M.ASCE, is a senior associate with Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers in
New York City, where she directs the firm’s Geo-Seismic Department. A leading expert in Eastern US
seismic design, her expertise is in soil-structure interaction, liquefaction evaluation, risk assessment of
critical facilities, and performance-based applications. She serves on several scientific committees,
including the one that created the 2014 New York City Building Code. Her work is widely published and
her contributions have been recognized by the Prakash Prize for Excellence in Earthquake Engineering
among other awards. Following Hurricane Sandy, she became the co-leader of the GEER (Geotechnical
Extreme Event Reconnaissance) team and currently she leads the GEER efforts for the earthquake
sequence events in Greece. She has developed programs for K-5 students about the geology,
earthquakes and underground construction in NYC. She can be reached at snikolaou@mrce.com
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Pamela Patrick
Ms. Pamela Patrick is a third semester PhD student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Previously she earned a BS in Geological
Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 2005, and a MS in Civil and Environmental
Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2006. She then worked as a consultant for a private engineering
company in the greater Washington DC area for six years. Her predominate interest is finding cost
effective mitigation techniques for geotechnical engineering issues related to natural disasters (such as
landslides, sinkholes, and earthquakes). As a consultant, she was involved in site characterization, soil
and rock mechanics studies. She is particularly interested in interdisciplinary projects which bring
together engineering, earth sciences and other social or economic disciplines for innovative solutions to
engineering problems. While pursuing her PhD, Pam was a teaching assistant for Soil Mechanics, as well
as a research assistant on the Perrell Fellowship. Her current research includes investigating the
relationship between soil strength and coastal erosion of soft saturated clay soils in tidal basins and wet
lands. She plans to become a professor upon completion of her PhD program.
Aaron Sachs
Aaron is a geotechnical engineer who joined Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers (MRCE) in 2006,
after completing his M.S. in Civil Engineering at the Unviersity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
During his career at MRCE, he has gained experience in soil exploration, design and construction of
shallow and deep foundations in a variety of geologic conditions, earth support structures, geotechnical
instrumentation, dewatering, design and construction of slurry trench hydraulic barriers to control
groundwater flow. He also has experience in managing design teams to meet project schedule,
technical, and budget needs.
In 2012, Aaron participated in the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored Geotechnical Extreme
Events Reconaissance (GEER) team that inspected coastal geotechnical infrastructure in New York City
and New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and coordinated and co-authored the resulting
reconaissance report (accessible at www.geerassociation.org). As part of this effort, he attended civil
engineering and architecture industry events and developed contacts in multiple New York City agencies
and consulting firms related to the New York City / New Jersey recovery. The GEER report formed the
basis of an article published in the ASCE Jan/Feb 2014 Geo-Strata magazine on resilient and sustainable
design, as well as a keynote lecture delivered by Dr. Youssef Hashash of UIUC at the 2014 ASCE
GeoCongress held in Atlanta, Georgia, which had a theme of Geo-Characterization and Modeling for
Sustainability.
In 2013, Aaron became the Manager of MRCE's in-house soils laboratory. As Laboratory Manager, he is
responsible for laboratory staff assignments, testing schedules, budgets, procedures, and quality
assurance for all testing performed in MRCE's Soils Laboratory.
Tom Sheahan
Tom Sheahan is a professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Northeastern,
where he has been on the faculty since 1991. He is also the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
for the College of Engineering. His expertise is in geotechnical engineering, specifically experimental
methods for studying the mechanical behavior of soft ground and its relationship to environmental
contaminant problems. He has been the Principal Investigator and co-PI on a number of NSF grants and
an NIH R01 (basic research) grant in this area. He also has extensive experience in designing and
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implementing training, mentoring and integration programs for research trainees on large-scale, multiinstitution research projects. In addition to his involvement as education and training lead on the NSF
coastal adaptation project, he is the Training Core Leader for the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences (NIEHS) program called PROTECT, a multi-institution effort examining the link between
groundwater contamination and high preterm birth rates in Puerto Rico. Prof. Sheahan is the author of
90 publications, including co-author of a textbook on geotechnical engineering. He has been recognized
with outstanding teaching awards at Northeastern, and received the national Tau Beta Pi McDonald
Mentoring award for his work as a faculty advisor, mentor to junior faculty, and his advising of student
groups.
Yaser Abunnasr
Yaser Abunnasr is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture in the Department of Landscape
Design and Ecosystem Management at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He is trained as an
architect and a landscape architect and holds degrees in both fields. He received his PhD in Regional
Planning at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Abunnasr adopts a landscape and
environmental approach to urban and regional planning that mediates ecological and ecosystem
concerns with community wellbeing and livelihood.
Dr. Abunnasr’s current research is on green infrastructure systems as a planning and design tool for
climate change adaptation for urban and regional resilience. His work on adaptation planning
investigates frameworks and procedures that account for impacts on natural and manmade systems,
incorporate uncertainty in current and future conditions in the planning process and addresses
vulnerability and exposure of communities to these impacts. Work on green infrastructure is
conceptualized as a landscape system that operates at multi-scales, provides multiple benefits, and
enhances places of living. Dr. Abunnasr is currently researching the impact of different land-uses on the
availability and morphology of physical space, including hybrid systems (natural engineered systems)
that provide opportunities to retrofit urban regions with green infrastructure systems. Dr. Abunnasr is in
the process of applying research on adaptation and green infrastructure planning to the MENA region.
Dr. Abunnasr is also trained as an archaeologist. He projects this interest into applying community based
landscape approaches to conservation of cultural and heritage heritage sites to extend their role as open
space amenities.
Dale Webber
Professor Dale Webber holds the GraceKennedy Foundation endowed chair in Environmental
Management at the University of the West Indies and is the Director of the Centre for Environmental
Management as well as the Centre for Marine Sciences at the Mona Campus. His academic
specialization is in the field of Coastal Ecology and Management.
Professor Webber has had a distinguished career in Coastal Ecology and Environmental Management
and has demonstrated a strong and consistent record of academic achievement in research, teaching
and administration. The impact of this research is recognized internationally by his peers. Professor
Webber has produced three book chapters and thirty publications in peer reviewed journals, nine of
which are within the special issue of a major journal ‘Bulletin of Marine Science’ highlighting the work
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on the coastal ecology of the polluted Kingston Harbour. He has presented his research findings at
conferences locally, regionally and internationally and has written over twenty technical reports for the
Governments of the Caribbean. Dale has attracted approximately US$2.5 Million in research grants over
the past 20 years.
Over the past fifteen years Dale has supervised 18 MSc, 27 M.Phil., and 13 Ph.D. students to successful
completion in a range of interests from water quality and coastal ecology to oceanography, ecosystem
modeling and the effectiveness of multilateral environmental agreements in environmental
management. He also has an excellent record of public service, serving as Chairman, Environmental
Foundation of Jamaica Board of Directors, Convener of the CAPE Environmental Sciences Panel for the
Caribbean Examination Council, Chairman of CL Environmental Company and Deputy Chairman of the
National Council on Ocean and Coastal Zone Management in Jamaica as well as a member of the
Jamaica Institute of Environmental Professionals. Dale is married to marine biologist Dr. Mona Webber
with two teenaged daughters Marissa and Deanna.
Jonathan Woodruff
Jon Woodruff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of
Massachusetts where he has been a faculty member since 2009. Jon has a M.S. in Applied Ocean Physics
and Engineering and a Ph.D. in Geology and Geophysics, both from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program, as well as a B.S. in Civil and
Environmental Engineering from Tufts University. His research interests lie in the area of sediment
transport in coastal, estuarine and tidal river environments, as well as assessing the level to which
climate change, sea-level rise, and shoreline change impact the degree of flooding by storms.
Framework for SAGE Conference Working Group Discussion on Local and Spatial
Considerations
The overall goal of our network is to put forward a shared framework for better informing resilient
coastal infrastructure decisions based on physical, natural, and societal conditions. In our grant proposal
we anticipated that this resilient infrastructure framework would include understanding communities as
existing and evolving within adaptive gradients, addressing spill-over and equity effects of infrastructure
decisions, using evidence regarding the impacts of fast-onset disasters (e.g., hurricanes, tsunamis) to
improve practices and policies for chronic, slow-onset phenomena (e.g. sea level rise), and tying the
application of our theory to increasingly available indicators of climate change and local conditions. As
the project develops there will certainly be other considerations that emerge from our process.
According to the US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE): "Coastal risk reduction can be achieved through a
variety of approaches, including natural or nature- based features (e.g., wetlands and dunes),
nonstructural interventions (e.g., policies, building codes and emergency response such as early warning
and evacuation plans), and structural interventions (e.g., seawalls and breakwaters)." For the purpose
9
of this working group, discussion about early warning or evacuation planning and similar emergency
response is beyond our scope, but local policies and building codes etc. are part of our considerations.
The particular focus of this working group this year is on understanding what factors currently underlie
the decisions that get made at the local level, as well as what in our opinion ought to be included but
perhaps tends to be ignored. Obvious examples include cost to local government, historical efficacy,
etc. Less obvious examples might be local culture and power differentials among local actors. In future
years, we will then have a base for identifying how to provide the data, work across disciplines, and
better inform decision-making to improve local choices.
The Infrastructure Working Group will identify ranges of infrastructure; the Policy group will work on
questions similar to ours but at the national level. In this and future years, the Spatial/Local group will
be particularly tasked with considering the equity implications of those choices particularly as they
relate to the spatial decision factors identified above.
We will use this discussion as a means of exploring the benefits and drawbacks to and interrelationships
among green, gray, and social/cultural infrastructure. We would like to determine what possible
improvements could be made for the future to help bridge the gap between professionals in the
industry regarding general awareness, technological knowledge, and design implementation.
Consider the following questions:
1) What local/spatial/community characteristics determine the kind of intervention that is selected at
the local level? In other words, what are the input parameters/variables that would go into a model for
local decision-making between different sorts of infrastructure?
1a) Which variables weigh most heavily in your particular region?.
2) We'll select five representative infrastructure actions (e.g., a sea wall, mangrove preservation, etc).
Answer the following for each of these:
2a) What aspects of community culture support or discourage that choice?
2b) What are the equity/spill-over issues that ought to be considered for that choice?
3) Does the local government have different information and expertise needs for green versus grey
versus non-structural solutions?
4 What information is currently lacking which could aid in planning and designing infrastructure (green
or gray or non-structural)?
10
5) What regulatory or other policy incentives or barriers exist that may incentivize or prevent adoption
of resilient coastal adaptation options?
6) What opportunities exist for research in this area?
7) Are there additional outside professionals or academics currently studying these issues whom we
should bring into the discussion? What are the other relevant networks on these issues for these
regions?
Abstract for SAGE Conference Working Group Discussion on Regional/State/National Level
Policy and Governance
The overall goal of our network is to put forward a shared framework for better informing resilient
coastal infrastructure decisions based on physical, natural, and societal conditions. In our grant proposal
we anticipated that this resilient infrastructure framework would include understanding communities as
existing and evolving within adaptive gradients, addressing spill-over and equity effects of infrastructure
decisions, using evidence regarding the impacts of fast-onset disasters (e.g., hurricanes, tsunamis) to
improve practices and policies for chronic, slow-onset phenomena (e.g. sea level rise), and tying the
application of our theory to increasingly available indicators of climate change and local conditions. As
the project develops there will certainly be other considerations that emerge from our process.
According to the US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE): "Coastal risk reduction can be achieved through a
variety of approaches, including natural or nature- based features (e.g., wetlands and dunes),
nonstructural interventions (e.g., policies, building codes and emergency response such as early warning
and evacuation plans), and structural interventions (e.g., seawalls and breakwaters)." For the purpose
of this working group, discussion about early warning or evacuation planning and similar emergency
response is beyond our scope, but local policies and building codes etc. are part of our considerations.
The particular focus of the Policy and Governance Working Group is understanding what factors
currently underlie the decisions that get made at the regional, state, and national levels, as well as the
scientific information that ought to be included in decisions, but may need to be properly presented or
translated to be useful. One of the roles of this team will be to assess the state of decision support for
infrastructure decisions, compare and contrast regional information, policies, and governance structures
for infrastructure decision-making, and opportunities for and the nature of improved decision support
to support regional/state/national level infrastructure decision-making.
The RCN includes 3 Working Groups: The Infrastructure Working Group will identify ranges of
infrastructure. The Local and Spatial Working Group will work on questions similar to ours but at the
local level, with an additional emphasis on equity questions.
We will use this discussion as a means of exploring the benefits and drawbacks to and interrelationships
among green, gray, and social/cultural infrastructure. We would like to determine what possible
improvements could be made for the future to help support a broader consideration and assessment of
11
green, grey, and cultural infrastructure approaches to increase resilience.
Consider the following questions:
1) What governance characteristics currently determine the kinds of intervention that are
selected at regional/state/national levels?
1a) What are the strengths and weaknesses of current governance arrangements for
making decisions about coastal infrastructure?
1b) How does this vary across the political jurisdictions and especially within and between
the Northeast and Caribbean regions?
2) What information is currently lacking or not appropriately translated which could aid in
planning and designing infrastructure (green or gray or non-structural) or understanding the
governance opportunities or impediments?
2a) What form should that information take to be most useful to regional/state/national
decision-making?
3) How do your regions/states/nations make infrastructure (grey and green) decisions currently?
3a) How is scientific information included in the process?
4) What regulatory or other policy incentives or barriers exist that may incentivize or prevent
adoption of resilient coastal adaptation options?
5) What opportunities exist for research in this area?
6) Are there additional outside professionals or academics currently studying these issues whom
we should bring into the discussion?
6a) What are the other relevant networks on these issues for these regions?
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