HomeMy WebLinkAboutSubmittal-Jane Gilbert & Reinaldo Borges-Sea Level Rise Committee Presentation ReportDear City of Miami Commission,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to review the University of Miami's 2016 Climate Change
Special Report and to share with the Commission our thoughts and about how the University may
inform our recommendations related to making our City more resilient to sea level rise. The following is
a draft response as we welcome your input.
The report provides a glimpse into the depth and breadth of climate change related research and
expertise across disciplines and schools within University of Miami. Some of this expertise and research
could potentially provide support to the City as we develop and implement strategies to adapt to
climate change and sea level rise. Some examples include:
Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
• Continuing to support the Southeast Florida Climate Change Compact in making periodic
reviews of sea level rise predictions;
• SUSTAIN Lab can help us better understand how and where our City will be increasingly
vulnerable to the impacts of hurricane related storm surge and potentially forecast the
mitigation benefits of various green (such as Reefs, mangroves and dunes) and grey (such as
raising sea walls and roads) infrastructure improvements, and/or
• Their remote sensing equipment can assist us in better understanding how increased salt water
intrusion is raising our ground water levels putting new pressures on our built environment.
The School of Architecture
• Re -designing specifically vulnerable neighborhoods to help residents and businesses visualize
how we could live in harmony with increasing sea and groundwater levels.
The Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy
• Support the design of methods and tools for effectively communicating the current and future
impacts of sea level rise and engaging with our diverse constituents in developing adaptive
solutions that meet their needs and interests.
The Center for Computational Sciences
• Modelling current and future risk profiles given different scenarios, Expand use of digital
technologies in emergency management and/or installing, monitoring and analyzing sensors to
inform how the City could operate it's buildings, infrastructure and transportation systems
more efficiently.
The School of Communications with the Geography Department could help our City's GIS team in
creating maps that can help the City inform and engage staff, residents, business and property owners
about where we are most vulnerable to increasingly repetitive flooding events, including upgrading
evacuation zone planning in the event of a storm surge.
The School of Engineering could support the process of upgrading the City's Storm Water Management
Master Plan
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Likewise, the City provides an excellent real world laboratory and learning ground for the University to
test new approaches, ideas and/or tools that could potentially be applied in supporting coastal cities
internationally.
Similarly, Florida International University is an anchor institution with expertise across several schools
and disciplines now organized with the Sea Level Solutions Centerthat could be tapped to provide
research, professional development, community engagement and decision-making support within the
City of Miami. Some brief examples of how FIU is contributing in the area include:
• School of Architecture developing models and plans to help us visualize how we might redesign
our neighborhoods for sea level rise.
• School of Communications developed the app Eyes on the Rise giving all residents easy access
to begin to see how their neighborhoods and properties will be impacted by sea level rise over
time.
• School of Environment, Arts and Society measuring the impacts of flood mitigation efforts on
water quality in Biscayne Bay; and
• Sea Level Solutions Center providing hundreds of presentations to neighborhood groups, cities,
businesses on the impacts of and potential solutions to sea level rise throughout Miami Dade
County.
Both universities have made it a priority to organize their resources to serve as interdisciplinary
solutions centers for sea level rise and climate change adaptation. Therefore, it is the recommendation
of the Sea Level Rise Committee to actively seek partnerships with both FIU and UM and welcome other
regional, national and international expertise willing to partner with the City on developing solutions.
The City of Miami has the potential to serve as a model for urban coastal resilience to sea level rise.
The Sea Level Rise Committee therefore recommends three actions by the City of Miami to advance
these partnerships:
• Department leads within City staff meet with University leaders with applicable expertise to
explore avenues for partnership in the areas of mapping, communications, IT, storm water
management plans, land use and building codes. Include City grants writing and university
advancement so that each may seek opportunities to resource these partnerships.
• City of Miami increase number of paid internships offered to local college students across
departments but focused on issues related to adapting to sea level rise and climate change.
This will provide the City with added human resources dedicated to this issue at a reasonable
cost and provide students with invaluable real world experience addressing a global problem.
• Join Miami Dade County and City of Miami Beach in a Greater Miami and the Beaches
application to join the Metro Labs Network. The Metro Labs Network currently provides
organizational support and resource sharing with over 30 regional city — university partnerships
throughout the United States. Partners focus on Research, Development and Deployment
(RD&D) projects that offer technological and analytically based solutions to challenges facing
urban areas including: inequality in income, health, mobility, security and opportunity; aging
infrastructure; and environmental sustainability and resiliency. City -University relationships are
mutually -beneficial in which the city's R&D department and the city is a test bed. When
networked nationally, they present an opportunity to scale effective solutions, accelerate best
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practices and advance the understanding of urban science. Since this partnership would offer
benefits far beyond supporting the City in its response to sea level rise, this partnership is best
advanced through the Greater Miami and the Beaches Resilience Partnership, which includes
the City of Miami Beach and Miami -Dade County.
So that summarizes our findings and recommendations at this time. We welcome your input and
comments so that we may finalize this into a report to the Commission.
Thank you.
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