On March 31st, CES celebrated the official release of FAU’s Home and High Water, a podcast about our research uncovering how we live, adapt, and thrive in a changing climate.

You can listen, subscribe, and review Home and High Water on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Pocket Casts. Learn more about this project on our website.

Coming Soon. In early May, our newest episode will take you behind the scenes of the National Science Foundation Coastal SEES research project, a 4-year interdisciplinary effort to examine how humans and their coastal environments are interacting, especially in the face of increasing threats like sea-level rise at three Long Term Ecological Research sites. To be the first to know when a new episode is released, subscribe to our podcast newsletter.

Did you miss our last episode? Listen now to a two-part series diving into the science of community climate resilience research in one South Florida neighborhood, the Estates of Fort Lauderdale. In a rapidly changing climate, being able to map and quantify the vulnerability and resilience of a community is critical because it is often the first picture decision-makers have of an area, shaping vital policy decisions from hazard preparation to response. In Part 1 of the podcast series, we learn about the resilience assessments that provide a crucial foundation to our understanding of community vulnerability and resilience. In Part 2 of the podcast series, we focus on what our research team discovered about the local landscape when they began to collect information about community resilience at the neighborhood scale.

Congratulations to Alyssa Jones Wood on her promotion to the City of Hallandale Beach (CoHB) Sustainability & Resiliency Officer. When Alyssa began working with CoHB as the Green Initiatives Coordinator, her current position didn’t exist. By creating this position, Alyssa has placed community climate resilience within CoHB growth and development. Her new role is responsible for leading the City’s climate change response and sustainability efforts and working with the City’s new Innovation Officer on Smart Cities Initiatives.

Please join us as we celebrate Arbor Day in the Robert J. Huckshorn Arboretum at Florida Atlantic University’s Jupiter Campus on Friday, April 30 at 10 a.m. FAU faculty and staff will dedicate a bench in memory of Dr. Bhagyashree “Shree” Kundalkar. This is a mixed event, both in-person and virtual. In addition, FAU will be celebrating its 11th year of being designated as a Tree Campus Higher Education. Learn more about the Robert J. Huckshorn Arboretum.

We kindly ask that you RSVP if you plan to attend in-person or virtually. We hope to see you there.

Adaptation Urbanism and Resilient Communities: Transforming Streets to Address Climate Change, by Dr. Billy Fields and Dr. John Renne will be released on May 4, 2021 by Taylor & Francis and is now available for pre-order. Dr. John Renne is the director of FAU's Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions and a lead collaborator with CES.

The Tamiami Trail is the historic roadway connecting Tampa to Miami. While the roadway made traveling between the two cities faster and safer, it created a barrier to water flow going into Everglades National Park. Over the past few decades, efforts have been underway to make modifications to the Tamiami Trail. When all of the modifications are completed, the increased water flows are expected to result in improvements to hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands and will provide the foundation for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Learn more about the modifications to the Tamiami Trail by viewing the CES video below:

In case you missed them, check out our Stormwater Treatment Areas video and LILA video.

Each spring, FAU’s Center for Environmental Studies hosts the annual IHE-FAU Water Professionals Program, engaging graduate students from nations worldwide. This program normally brings students from the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education to South Florida for a specialized in-person education program focusing on solving water challenges.

Students typically gain hands-on experience through technical lectures and informative field trips led by local scientists and experts. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and other government agencies provide lectures on modeling, policy, water quality and storage, flood control, and other related topics. Field trips to the Everglades and the Kissimmee River demonstrate large-scale restoration projects in action.

To adapt to the ever-changing COVID reality, in the fall of 2020, CES was able to adapt the normally two-week, immersive experience into the program’s first-ever, virtual course held September 7 – 9, 2020. The program was adapted further for a new spring 2021 session, which included 28 students from IHE Delft’s Flood Risk Management master’s degree program. The spring "Virtual Florida" program, held February 1 – 11, combined on-demand lectures and virtual field trips with live interactive workshops and included question and answer sessions with the scientist lecturers.

The scientists' presentations focused on the Everglades and other significant restoration projects as case studies. The focus was on modeling, policy, implementation, challenges and opportunities. While the virtual program limited the hands-on experience, it continues to provide an opportunity to showcase the partnership between FAU and federal and state agencies as a model for worldwide efforts through a practical approach.