IRIS affiliates Alysha Helmrich, Brian Bledsoe, Todd Bridges, and Scott Pippin were recently awarded funding for their Scalable Watershed Resilience project, which seeks to further the US Army Corps of Engineers’ ongoing efforts to strengthen the resilience of critical infrastructure systems in the Savannah River basin. 

About the project: To further the US Army Corps of Engineers’ ongoing efforts surrounding the resilience of critical infrastructure systems, the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems at the University of Georgia proposes to support the co-development of a scalable, top-down regional critical infrastructure resilience framework for the Savannah River Basin by leveraging theory and practice through collaboration with academia, government, private sector, and community members. Establishing a regional critical infrastructure resilience framework for the Savannah River Basin will provide significant public benefits by: (1) planning for known and unknown risks in a complex environment, (2) identifying the resilience capacity of the community to manage said risks, and (3) providing explicit guidance on how to deploy the framework in surrounding communities, improving regional resilience. Ultimately, this will help communities allocate limited resources toward improving critical infrastructure resilience in a systematic manner, and, thereby, improving resilience before, during, and after disturbance events.