IRIS Wrapped: 24 Publications from 2024


2024 has been another busy year for the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems! Because we’re so proud of their amazing work, we’ve collected 24 papers from IRIS affiliates to celebrate 2024 that show the impressive work happening here at UGA and beyond.

The Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems was chartered by the University of Georgia in late 2016. You can always explore what we’re up to at iris.uga.edu/what-we-do. If you’d like to support this work, head to the “Donate” link that can be found at the top of the page or right here

To catch up on the awesome work from this year, check out these papers (in order of publication date) from throughout 2024 that capture our unique interdisciplinary focus.

* = Not all authors listed

1. Evidence of cloud and rainfall modification in a mid-sized urban area – A climatological analysis of Augusta, Georgia – City and Environment Interactions

Marshall Shepherd*

“Climate is changing at global scales and that has important impacts on hydrometeorological processes. Much of that change is driven by anthropogenic processes related to greenhouse gas emissions. However, a body of literature has continuously identified urban land cover as another anthropogenic forcing on local or regional hydrometeorological processes. Better understanding of urban-cloud-rainfall interactions are critical for improving weather and climate models.”

For fans of: meteorology, urban studies, local case studies

2. Fisherfolk contingent valuation of marine restoration in Gujarat, India – Ocean & Coastal Management

Sameera Gujarathi-Talati, Susana Ferreira, Seth Wenger & Mateusz Filipski

“A healthy marine ecosystem benefits not just coastal communities by supporting the local economy but also has far reaching advantages to the society at large by attracting tourism, promoting food security, providing feed for livestock, and serving as a natural defense against coastal erosion and inundation. Our study provides monetary estimates for aggregate benefits of reef restoration expressed in terms of WTP [willing to pay] or WTCT [willing to contribute time] of the fisherfolk of our study area.”

For fans of: international case studies, marine science, economics, sociology

3. Life cycle management of natural infrastructure: assessment of state of practice and current tools –  Frontiers in Built Environment

Margaret Kurth, Candice Piercy, Rhett Jackson, Bertrand Lemasson & Brian Harris

“Design alternatives for traditional infrastructure are often compared in terms of expected–and often narrowly defined–costs and benefits to justify the selected plan. Taking a broader life cycle perspective in the benefit-cost evaluation process helps account for potentially rare, indirect, or accruing project benefits… Natural infrastructure differs from conventional infrastructure in terms of performance and benefit development over time, lifespan, materials, intensity of intervention needs, and social and environmental benefits.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: natural infrastructure, engineering, benefit-cost analysis

4. At the extremes: Assessing interrelations among the impacts of and responses to extreme hydoclimatic events in Ceará, Northeast Brazil – Journal of Hydrology 

Cydney Seigerman, Nicolly Santos Leite, Eduardo Sávio Martins & Donald Nelson

“…the paradigm “Convivência com o semiárido” (“Living with the semi-arid region”) remains limited to adapting to drought hazard, ultimately hindering adequate extreme rainfall and drought responses. To promote more effective adaptive strategies in the context of hydroclimatic intensification in semi-arid regions, drought, heavy rainfall, and flood responses must be considered in a more integrated manner to create management plans to prepare for the potential impacts of these hazards into the future.”

For fans of: international case studies, anthropology, disaster response

5. A model for understanding the effects of flow conditions on oyster reef development and impacts to wave attenuation – Ecological Modelling

Becca Stanley, Matt Bilskie, Brock Woodson & Jeb Byers

“As a nature-based solution, living shorelines utilize natural ecosystem processes and habitats to provide shoreline protection…Determining the conditions associated with the reef heights necessary to provide shoreline protection is essential for developing guidelines and a framework for optimal design.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: natural infrastructure, marine science, oysters

6. Adaptation to water-induced disaster: exploring local knowledge and Indigenous knowledge-led strategies –  AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples

Cydney Seigerman*

“The majority of the literature does not give justice to the resourcefulness of local communities and Indigenous peoples that, as our meta-review shows, are mostly autonomous and independent in their adaptation strategies. Integrating LK [local knowledge] and IK [Indigenous knowledge] with broader regional and long-term adaptation responses requires an understanding of process-based factors that lead to risk reduction.”

For fans of: Indigenous knowledge, anthropology, water resources management

7. Embracing biodiversity on engineered coastal infrastructure through structured decision-making and Engineering With Nature® – U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Technical Report

Emily Dolatowski, Jon Calabria, Matt Bilskie, Jeb Byers, Kelsey Broich, Kyle McKay, Brock Woodson, Amanda Tritinger & Burton Suedel 

“Nature-based solutions (NbS) are a means to enhance biodiversity and improve the environment while meeting engineering goals. To address this urgent need, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineering With Nature® (EWN) program balances economic, environmental, and social benefits through collaboration.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: natural infrastructure, coastal science, nature-based solutions

8. Recognizing Human-Environment Water Conflict is A Critical Step for Managing Tradeoffs between Water Security and Freshwater Biodiversity – Social Science Research Network

Charles van Rees

“Urgent action is needed to address the coupled sustainability challenges of biodiversity loss and water security for a livable Anthropocene. While managing the latter, we risk failing to address the former, where measures to ensure water security for growing and increasingly affluent populations are at odds with the role water must play in sustaining ecosystems and biodiversity… I suggest that recognizing these human-environment tradeoffs as HEWC closes key implementation gaps for freshwater biodiversity conservation, and facilitates decision-making processes that allow more place-based, nuanced, and democratic solutions capable of meeting the complex, wicked challenges of Anthropocene water management.”

For fans of: water resources management, biodiversity, nature-based solutions

9. Modeling the flood protection services of levee setbacks, a nature-based solution Journal of Hydrology

Matt Chambers, Rod Lammers, Aditya Gupta, Matt Bilskie & Brian Bledsoe

“Readers should take away the following points: (1) setbacks can significantly lessen the severity of flood hazards acting on levee; (2) reductions in WSE may be achieved with setbacks at the location of concern or along downstream levee segments; (3) flood protection services depend on how additional floodplain conveyance reduces the conditional probability of levee failure, which varies along a levee at the segment-scale and can be calculated with LSRCs; (4) flood protection services scale non-linearly with setback size and exhibit diminishing returns; (5) scaling relationships are highly dependent on levee condition and flood magnitude; (6) setbacks are accompanied by erosion and sediment management risks that designers should be cognizant of, but may not hamper application; and (7) practitioners need to be aware of how setbacks may impact other infrastructure within the hydraulically affected reach as outcomes may be detrimental and or beneficial.”

For fans of: risk management, natural infrastructure, freshwater science

10. Evaluating hydrodynamics and implications to sediment transport for tidal restoration at Swan Cove Pool, Virginia – Journal of Ecohydraulics

Matt Bilskie

“…this study investigates opening impacts on the erosion potential and material exchanges in a small estuarine system currently subjected to impoundment. This effort will assist the design of the opening from an engineering and eco-hydraulics point of view.”

For fans of: fluid mechanics, environmental engineering, case studies

11. Life-history connections to long-term fish population trends in a species-rick temperate river –  Ecology of Freshwater Fish

Andrew Nagy, Mary Freeman, Brian Irwin & Seth Wenger

“Our analyses illustrate a use of long-term monitoring data of stream fish populations to evaluate directional community change, and provide evidence that species traits describing spawning mode, body size and life-history characteristics are associated with differential rates of declining abundances.”

For fans of: freshwater biology, long-term monitoring, fish

12. Compound inundation modeling of a 1-D idealized coastal watershed using a reduced physics approach – Water Resources Research

Félix Santiago-Collazo, Matt Bilskie, Peter Bacopoulos & Scott Hagen 

“This study presents a 1-D inundation model that assesses the physical interaction between the coastal and pluvial flood mechanisms through a reduced physics approach… coastal resilience measures could be enhanced and support authorities, stakeholders, and policy-makers in their quest to understand present and future consequences, evaluate risk, and ultimately mitigate compound flooding effects through science and more informed engineering practices.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: modelling, coastal science, flood risk management

13. Quantifying the impacts of future shoreline modification on biodiversity in a case study of coastal Georgia, United States – Conservation Biology

Daniel Coleman, Rachel Gittman, Craig Landry, Jeb Byers, Clark Alexander, Paul Coughlin & Brock Woodson 

“The 2 main approaches to modification are gray infrastructure (e.g., bulkheads and seawalls) and natural or green infrastructure (NI) (e.g., living shorelines). Gray infrastructure is still more often used for coastal protection than NI, despite having more detrimental effects on ecosystem parameters, such as biodiversity. We assessed the impact of gray infrastructure on biodiversity and whether the adoption of NI can mitigate its loss.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: biodiversity, local case studies, nature-based solutions

14. Human activities shape global patterns of decomposition rates in rivers – Science

Krista Capps 

“Rivers and streams contribute to global carbon cycling by decomposing immense quantities of terrestrial plant matter. However, decomposition rates are highly variable and large-scale patterns and drivers of this process remain poorly understood… Our global map provides estimates of rates across vast understudied areas of Earth and reveals rapid decomposition across continental-scale areas dominated by human activities.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: freshwater science, anthropogenic impacts, large-scale science

15. Racial Composition and Homeownership Influence the Distribution of Coastal Armoring in South Carolina, USAEstuaries and Coasts

Jeffrey Beauvais & Jeb Byers 

“The desire to stabilize coastlines has led to widespread use of hard armoring infrastructure across the globe; however, ecologists and coastal managers have increasingly documented the deleterious effects of armoring on ecological communities… [Our] results highlight that racial composition and homeownership are strong predictors of armoring count on private, personal property, which provides critical context for how these structures are distributed and underscores that socioeconomic factors can control where their associated environmental impacts may be concentrated.”

For fans of: anthropology, economics and real estate, climate risk management

16. The Case for the Science Popularizer – National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Perspectives

Marshall Shepherd 

“Many in the establishment scientific community took issue with Dr. Sagan’s popularity — displaying what has become known as the ‘Sagan Effect.’ In ‘Has Contemporary Academia Outgrown the Carl Sagan Effect?,’ which was published in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2016, neuroscientist Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde defines the Sagan Effect as ‘the perception that popular, visible scientists are worse academics than those scientists who do not engage in public discourse.’ As I became further enmeshed in the ivory tower, it became apparent to me that the term ‘popularizer’ seemed to carry a negative connotation.”

For fans of: editorials, science communication, Marshall Shepherd

17. An interdisciplinary overview of levee setback benefits: Supporting spatial planning and implementation of riverine nature-based solutions – WIREs Water

Charles van Rees, Matt Chambers, Angela Catalano, Daniel Buhr, Andressa Mansur, Damon Hall, Alec Nelson, Burton Suedel, Robert Hawley, Brian Bledsoe & Nate Nibbelink

“Nature-based solutions (NbS, and related concepts like natural infrastructure, Ecosystem-based Adaptation, and green infrastructure) are increasingly recognized as multi-benefit strategies for addressing the critical sustainability challenges of the Anthropocene, including the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis. Mainstreaming NbS in professional practice requires strategic, landscape-level planning integrating multiple sources of benefits and their synergies and trade-offs.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: natural infrastructure, biodiversity, being a good planner

18. Nature-based solutions as buffers against coastal compound flooding: Exploring potential framework for process-based modeling of hazard mitigation – Science of the Total Environment

Matt Bilskie* 

“As coastal regions face escalating risks from flooding in a changing climate, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have garnered attention as promising adaptation measures to mitigate the destructive impacts of coastal flooding. However, the challenge of compound flooding, which involves the combined effects of multiple flood drivers, demands a deeper understanding of the efficacy of NbS against this complex phenomenon.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: nature-based solutions, coastal science, flood risk management

19. Innovating through Nature-Positive Engineering: How Can We Move Forward?The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law

Todd Bridges, Shana Jones & Matthew Shudtz  

“The terms ‘nature-based solutions’, ‘nature-based engineering’, and ‘natural infrastructure’ (among others) all refer to similar approaches that involve taking advantage of existing aspects of the natural landscape and/or imitating natural processes through engineering and design to produce environmental and societal value… Adoption of nature-based solutions therefore will require rethinking long-standing social and legal frameworks associated with managing these traditional, structural approaches.”

For fans of: nature-based solutions, natural infrastructure, adapting to climate change

20. Valuing the Ecosystem Service Benefits of Natural Infrastructure: a Quantitative Review of the Literature – Social Science Research Network

Garrett Stanford, Susana Ferreira, Craig Landry & Ben Blachly 

“Unlike traditional infrastructure, natural infrastructure delivers a host of ecosystem services that may be difficult to quantify and monetize. For example, compare a seawall to a system of beaches, dunes, and coastal wetlands. Both serve the intended primary role of flood risk management, but beaches, dunes, and wetlands provide ancillary benefits (e.g., recreation, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration). Markets do not exist for many of the ecosystem services associated with natural infrastructure, so monetizing the suite of benefits requires specialized techniques from the field of nonmarket valuation.”

For fans of: economics, benefit-cost analysis, natural infrastructure

21. Groundwater Level Prediction Using Machine Learning and Geostatistical Interpolation Models – Water (New Sensors, New Technologies and Machine Learning in Water Sciences)

Fabian Zowam & Adam Milewski 

“Given the vulnerability of surface water to the direct impacts of climate change, the accurate prediction of groundwater levels has become increasingly important, particularly for dry regions, offering significant resource management benefits…Considering that groundwater level (GWL) is an indicator of groundwater availability at any given time, monitoring GWLs provides significant insights into the dynamics of recharge and withdrawals and how they influence the long-term availability of groundwater.”

For fans of: modelling, water resources management, machine learning

22. Facilitating dam removal decisions with multiple objectives – River Research and Applications

Laura Naslund, Daniel Buhr, Matt Chambers, S. Kyle McKay, Suman Jumani, Brian Bledsoe, Amy Rosemond & Seth Wenger 

“Proactive and transparent decision-making about the long-term management of dams, including rehabilitation, retrofit, and removal, is critical for successfully managing this aging infrastructure and presents an opportunity to weigh the many services and disservices dams provide. Existing tools to support dam removal decisions often constrain decision processes by considering only a limited set of user objectives.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: freshwater infrastructure, decision-making, nature-based solutions

NOT necessarily for fans of: dams

23. Social inequities shape climate change adaptation among Indian farmers – Environmental Research Letters 

Sechindra Vallury, Nathan Cook & Don Nelson

“Our study underscores the importance of addressing social inequalities in both adoption as well as the sustained utilization of agricultural technologies and other climate climate adaptation tools. Disparities in the utilization of these technologies can hinder farmers’ ability to access new innovations and adapt to increasing threats from climate change.” Read more about this paper here.

For fans of: anthropology, adapting to climate change, international case studies

24. Understanding public acceptability of climate policies in Europe – Climate Policy

Shouyu Zhang, Susana Ferreira and Berna Karali 

“Urgent and decisive government action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions is more likely when the proposed measures are popular among the public. This paper compares the drivers of European public support for three alternative policies to combat climate change: carbon taxation, renewable energy subsidies, and minimum energy efficiency standards that apply to household appliances.”

For fans of: economics, policy, adapting to climate change