Resilience in the Face of Rising Tides: ODU at the Intersection of Community and Coastal Flooding

The residents of Hampton Roads are no strangers to the coastal floods that prevail in the area. Addressing sea level rise and climate change is a top priority in the community, as the risk of storm and tidal flooding has continued to increase. In 2011, President Broderick introduced the Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative, which encouraged ODU researchers and faculty to unite and develop solutions to problems in their own backyard.

Professor Wie Yusuf is one of the researchers who, as part of the Initiative, began studying issues related to the rising sea levels and flooding in the Hampton Roads area. Yusuf is a core faculty member teaching in the Master of Public Administration and PhD in Public Administration and Policy programs. After experiencing sea level rise and flooding firsthand as a resident in Norfolk, Virginia, she realized that this was an area of community concern that the government and property owners could not solve themselves, and research was needed to understand how multiple sectors - not just government and residents, but businesses and nonprofits as well - can unify and effectively combat flooding challenges.

In addition to being a Professor in the School of Public Service in the Strome College of Business, Yusuf is the Assistant Director for Education for the Institute of Coastal Adaptation and Resilience (ICAR). She studies issues at the intersection of politics, policy, the public, and private interests related to seal level rise, flooding, adaptation, and resilience. As a policy scholar, she has written numerous technical reports and research papers on coastal resilience on a variety of topics including hurricane evacuation, building resilience, beliefs and attitudes for sea level rise policy, and management of flood losses. She has worked hard to improve awareness of the coastal resiliency issue for the region by organizing conferences and panel discussions on the topic. Coordinating projects with researchers from across campus, she has been awarded numerous grants totaling almost $2 million dollars.

Yusuf has made coastal resiliency research a top priority and recognizes brave residents who are willing to step up and try to address flooding problems even though resources for many are lacking. With that in mind, she is a constant advocate for simple things that individuals can do to make a difference like property owners using plants plus other natural substitutes to manage erosion rather than building concrete walls. Citizens can also make a big impact through participating in elections as she notes that Virginia Beach residents voted to invest in new infrastructure that will relieve flooding.

Yusuf wants Hampton Roads residents to know, "our expertise and research does not exist just in the university as there are opportunities for our knowledge and passion to translate into the community for us to jointly make a difference". She is a firm believer in university and community partnership, "where we can use our knowledge and student passion in the classroom to work on research and service-learning projects, where that passion translates to impact on ground because we are meeting the needs for the community."

Here is how you can help and get involved with promoting coastal resilience within our community. This link shows a community map which allows Hampton Roads residents to identify areas in their community that are important to them, as well as identifying areas that are challenged by flooding. Through this map, information is collected from the community, allowing researchers to see the areas that the community needs help in. Yusuf states, "I don't do research for the sake of doing research, but rather to help solve a problem that I know members in my community are facing."