CSI Receives NSF Funding for Community-centered Flood Risk Reduction Work

CSI researchers Samuel Muñoz, James Dennedy-Frank, Geoffrey Trussell and Damon Hall were awarded a $998,696 NSF grant to evaluate how communities have responded to recent floods and develop new tools to help build resilience to future flooding hazards. River flooding costs the United States nearly $500 billion each year through damaged infrastructure and disrupted businesses and lives — costs that continue to rise as populations grow in flood-prone areas and climate change intensifies precipitation and sea-level rise. Yet scientists still struggle to predict how floods will impact communities, and how best to communicate those findings to guide local decision making.

To address these challenges, the research team will work directly with community partners to evaluate and communicate changes in flood hazards, bringing together local knowledge with earth system observations and simulations to understand what drives flooding at the local scale and how hazards evolve under different scenarios. A key outcome will be a co-developed, public-facing decision-support tool that helps communities define and visualize local conditions under scenarios they themselves define.

The project will strengthen floodplain community resilience by improving understanding of the causes and projections of riverine flooding at the municipal level, while directly addressing long-standing concerns around uncertainty, social trust, and stakeholder utility. By integrating community knowledge with state-of-the-art earth system science throughout the research process, the framework ensures that scientific outcomes speak directly to local needs — and is designed to be transferable to other communities grappling with changing flood hazards.

Author: CSI Staff