Resilient Futures Podcast

The energy sector is continually complicated by aging power infrastructure, changing technology and competing needs from communities and industry. The Critical Infrastructure Resilience Group is here to help make sense of this complex landscape.

The CIRG, a unit of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, works on national research-based solutions for maintaining energy systems and national security. Thomaz Carvalhaes and Hillary Fishler, R&D Staff Scientists at Oak Ridge, join host Alysha to discuss how they combine interdisciplinary expertise to help communities by supporting infrastructure planning, interdependencies, partnerships and governance, and risk assessment.

Some of the topics...

After a decade working across the Southeast, Jordan Youngmann is seeing his hometown in upstate New York through fresh eyes–and his work is just warming up.

Pre-European colonization, forests looked very different: while many people think of this world as a "pristine" landscape, forest systems across North American were highly regulated by Indigenous groups. Today, these systems are largely fragmented by urban and agricultural spaces, but historically, they were managed by harnessing a force of nature: fire.

Many forest species are not only tolerant of burning, they're built for it. If these systems go to...

This podcast comes to you from the University of Georgia, a campus that has stretched across the hills of Athens, Georgia since 1785. UGA is situated between the Upper and Middle Oconee Rivers, with tributary creeks flowing all across campus- even right under our football stadium!

This month, hosts Alysha and Todd are joined by fellow UGA colleague Zak Ruehman, Director of Engineering Services here at the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems. Zak's team recently wrapped up an exciting cross-campus collaboration: a flood risk assessment across UGA's campus that shows the places and buildings most at risk.
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Patrick Keyser knows the grass may not always be greener--but there's still a lot to learn from it.

Since long before European colonization, grasslands have a rich history as one of North America's most diverse, resilient, and iconic landscapes. These  ecosystems are the epicenters of agriculture in the US, but native grass species are disappearing as introduced plants take over and land uses change. As a University of Tennessee professor and Director of the Center for Native Grasslands Management, Patrick spreads the gospel of grass.

This month, Patrick joins hosts Alysha and Todd to discuss t...

This month, Alysha Helmrich is our host and guest! This short episode discusses social-ecological-technological systems and sensemaking. She explores urban systems as SETS, positions SETS thinking for sensemaking, and identifies four modes of SETS to build requisite variety. To learn more, follow the links below!

Links:
Foundational reading on SETS: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018EF000926
Main perspective discussed regarding SETS and sensemaking: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-023-00120-1
SETS in Phoenix, AZ: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s43065-023-00085-6

Alysha's Haiku:
City not...

In the face of immense global and national change, the world’s oldest engineering society is staying flexible.

The American Society for Civil Engineers President, Marsha Bomar, joins our host Alysha Helmrich to speak to the power of diverse perspectives in building the future’s infrastructure and the need for interdisciplinary teams in solving great challenges.

Alysha and Marsha also discuss the workforce shortage in the field of engineering, and how bright minds from all walks of life should consider stepping up to fill the gap. Finally, they cover the history of the ASCE Infrastructure Repo...

Disasters are affecting more people and property than ever before. Since 1980, the U.S. has experienced 400+ weather-related "billion dollar" disasters, $3 trillion in economic impacts, and thousands of lives and livelihoods. In the effort to build our disaster resilience as a society, what's the role of insurance?

In this episode, our hosts are joined by Carolyn Kousky, Insurance for Good, and Marc Ragin, University of Georgia Terry College of Business. This month's guests discuss a question at the heart of disaster insurance: what's the best way to incentivize risk reduction for both insurance companies and customers?

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What did you do during the COVID-19 social distancing era? Some of us learned to make sourdough, some of us perfected a viral whipped coffee, plenty of us did a whole lot of nothing- but this NYC subculture was busy taking notes.

Anna Bounds, a Professor of Sociology at Queens College, has felt called to teach, write, and tell stories for a long time. She's particularly passionate about urban policies that make cities better, stronger and more vibrant.

As a sociologist–but also as a New Yorker–she began attending meetings of NYC's "prepper" community: a gr...

California relies on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as a hub for water, biodiversity, agriculture, recreation, and more. How can we make sure that management actions are working as intended?

 Returning guest Stephen Elser is a Senior Environmental Scientist with the Delta Stewardship Council, which works to advance California's coequal goals: a more reliable water supply and a resilient Delta ecosystem. Broadly, Stephen's team is tasked with supporting the use of adaptive management to enhance conservation and sustainable use of the Delta.

Adaptive management is a flexible approach to managing natural resources that allows for continuous l...

Have you ever asked your garbage truck where it's going?

Sybil Derrible is a professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago, focusing on urban engineering- studying large systems of power and movement inspired by the tiny island he calls his hometown. Living in a tight community (and with parents that owned a hardware store), Sybil grew up knowing where his water and energy came from- and now, he wants you to learn about yours too.

In this episode, Sybil joins us to discuss his new book, aptly titled The Infrastructure Book. He...

This month, we’re proud to introduce an in-house effort at the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems: the Georgia Statewide Resilience Assessment.

Commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts and conducted by the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems at UGA, this report brings together insight from across the sectors, stakeholders and systems of Georgia. The outcome: a review of our hazards and challenges, as well as some opportunities, exemplary projects, and recommendations for creating a more resilient Georgia.

The research process for this report involved holding in-person and virtual discussions across the state to gain a wi...

Cynthia Kierner, historian, self-declared "non-21st century person," and Mets fan, is deeply interested in the role of disturbances across American history- hurricanes, earthquakes, and disease, oh my. In her book, Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood, she reviews the history of natural disasters and how we respond to them across time and space in the United States.

Hosts Alysha and Todd join their guest in asking colossal questions on cataclysms: How do governments simultaneously prepare for risks at local, regional and national levels? What role do community outsiders...

We know that green spaces are good for you. They provide benefits to air quality, biodiversity, and even your mental health... but why?

Returning guest Joeri Morpurgo, a postdoctoral fellow at Universiteit Leiden in the Netherlands, set out with his team to answer this question. They found an important distinction: not all green spaces are created equal.

The team also investigated the various benefits of green space, and found natural variables to attribute them to: lower air temperatures were directly related to tree heights, soil quality promotes water storage, and so on. Every green space...

The Mississippi River Basin covers over a million square miles across the southeast and midwest US. Despite growing up far away in the northeast US, Boyce Upholt thinks about the nation's largest waterway more than most: he's the author of "The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi." The book began nearly eight years earlier with a paddling trip, a sunken steamboat, and love-at-first-sight for the iconic southern river.

Upholt speaks to our hosts Alysha and Todd about his intertwining passions for history and nature, and why this work centers on "the Great River." The...

Emmanuel Stone was raised to love good food: his mother, a restaurant owner, inspired him to teach culinary arts, learn about agriculture, and emphasize the importance of whole foods. This led him to Athens Land Trust: an organization that simultaneously encourages conservation and community in Athens, GA where UGA is located.

Stone serves as the Strategic Partnerships Director for ALT. From his office at Williams Farm, a space where ALT houses their offices as well as a community garden, sustainable farming classes for both youth and adults, and counseling for homebuyers, he explained the model ALT uses...

This month's guest is someone close to home for our team- meet Alysha's PhD student, Negin Shamsi! Negin gives an overview of her first first-author publication, titled, "Interdependency classification: a framework for infrastructure resilience."

Shamsi's research focus is infrastructure and urban resilience. Infrastructure managers collaborate across engineering, urban planning, emergency response, policy making and more. The goal of Shamsi's research, including the new paper, is to better prepare all of these fields for disturbances from hurricanes to cyber attacks.

"These systems do not function in isolation, they are interdependent and if one system fails, it...

How big does an urban garden need to be to support pollinators and other important insects? What kinds of plants lead to the most biodiverse space? How should homeowners manage their gardens to support the natural world?

Get the full garden scoop with PhD researcher Joeri Morpurgo, from University Leiden in the Netherlands! Morpurgo and his colleagues visited urban gardens throughout Amsterdam and counted all the different plant and insect species they could find. 

Some key findings? Gardens can be small but mighty--as long as there's dense foliage and a plethora of plant species, they s...

Big, leafy shade trees, burbling creeks, and access to recreation in beautiful natural areas: most people intuitively know that these kinds of natural amenities create pleasant communities, and houses located close to these kinds of resources tend to sell for more than those without. What folks often aren't thinking about is the fact that these resources have other benefits too--including filtering stormwater, sequestering carbon, and cooling neighborhoods. But how can we use policy to help encourage developers to adopt these policies from the start? And how can policy backfire in helping create equitably distributed natural resources for communities?
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Lauren McPhillips didn't always dream of being a professor, but she knew she loved solving problems.

After earning three degrees in Earth systems science and environmental engineering at Cornell University, McPhillips completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Arizona State University, where she met our host Alysha. Now, she's working on ecological and water resources engineering problems from green stormwater infrastructure to solar implementation. In her position as a researcher and assistant professor at Penn State's Institute for Energy & the Environment, she studies how best to implement solar power across ecosystems while preserving ecosystem services in proposed solar...

Water is a natural resource all of us rely on, but there's a lot of thought and work that goes into being able to turn on your tap. How do we make sure water is accessible to everyone? Who does a water source belong to? And why is getting water out West so complicated?

This month, hosts Alysha and Todd are joined by Dr. Ben Rachunok, an assistant professor at the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at NC State University. Rachunok studies how communities evaluate and respond to water rights, climate risk and...

Introducing Dr. Brian Bledsoe, Director of the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Georgia and farmer, guitar player, and dad (not in that order.)

Our hosts Alysha Helmrich and Todd Bridges join Bledsoe in reviewing his lifelong commitment to research and interdisciplinary collaboration. His career has largely focused on river management and hydrology, leading him to work not just with engineers but ecologists, economists, geologists, lawyers and more. When he proposed a new institute at UGA focusing on natural solutions for infrastructure problems, he found a large community...

This month, our host Alysha Helmrich and her guest Lynn Abdouni are coming to you live from halfway across the world.

This pair of UGA engineering professors recently visited Doha, Qatar for a meeting about the Proactive Resilience Plan (PReP), a collaboration between UGA, Texas A&M, and the Qatar Foundation. During their trip, they took a moment to chat about urban morphology: "the study of the buildings, the streets, and the spaces in between them."

"We're talking about the urban fabric- it's alive," Dr. Abdouni said. "The streets are for walking, but they're also...

This month, we're welcoming practitioners from Atlanta Regional Commission: Katherine Zitsch, Deputy COO, and Jon Philipsborn, Climate and Resilience Manager.

Regional commissions work on many subject areas across a metropolitan area, from community development and transportation to water security and climate change. At ARC, resilience is a key defining factor in how they make decisions around all of these topics and more. In this episode, hosts Alysha and Todd and their guests discuss how ARC is helping Atlanta tackle big development questions, challenges and opportunities.

The group also tackles larger questions like the role of...

This month, anthropologist and historian Dr. Eric Cline and USACE research social scientist Dr. Ben Trump come together with hosts Alysha and Todd to explore large-scale regional destabilization and collapse in the Late Bronze Age.

Around 1200 B.C., an interconnected network of eight large, thriving civilizations collapsed in a matter of decades. Dr.s Cline and Trump wanted to explore how this collapse came about, whether the civilizations could have predicted or prevented it, and what resilience strategies some of these civilizations exhibited.

"They went down. There's no reason to suspect that we won't as...

This month features a special guest. The Honorable Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, visited UGA for the Southeast Defense Communities Resilience Workshop this week. During her busy visit to Athens, she stopped by to chat with Alysha and Todd about climate resilience in the U.S. Army: on military bases, in outreach projects and construction, and overseeing climate policies.

Ms. Jacobson is an experienced environmental lawyer who previously served in the Department of Justice and at private law firms in Washington, D.C. In this episode, she describes the importance...

Alysha and Todd speak with Marta Berbés-Blázquez and Stephanie Cruz Maysonet from the University of Waterloo about the implementation of Nature-based Solutions in the Global South. NbS research has primarily taken place in the Global North. The group discusses how to build solutions that satisfy the ecological, economic and sociopolitical needs of the Global South. Berbés-Blázquez introduces the idea of "urban labs," spaces for communities to engage in place-based experimentation.  Cruz Maysonet then speaks to practitioners Tischa Muñoz Erickson (San Juan, Puerto Rico) and Mercy Borbor-Cordova (Guayaquil and Duran, Ecuador) about their work with commun...

Alysha and Todd are joined by Kyle McKay (USACE Research Civil Engineer) and Charles van Rees (Conservation Scientist at UGA) to discuss BIODIVERSITY- and spoiler alert, it's a lot bigger than bugs and bunnies.

Biodiversity is an ecological concept that can be difficult to quantify but is critical for environmental stability. It's also something that engineers working on nature-based projects have to keep in mind for the creation and restoration of natural infrastructure systems.

Kyle's Haiku:
Built or natural?
Intergenerational
Legacy is key.

Charles's Haiku:
Safe homes and good...

On interdisciplinary collaboration, promoting resilience projects and disaster management strategies with Executive Director of ASCE, Tom Smith

Alysha Helmrich and Todd Bridges are joined by Tom Smith, Executive Director of the American Society of Civil Engineers, to discuss interdisciplinary collaboration between engineers, policy experts, and environmental managers. The group engages in a detailed discussion of how to promote resilience projects and disaster management strategies. Find the full episode description here.

Find links mentioned in the episode below!

Pathways to Resilient Communities - Pathways to Resilient Communities (1).pdf (asce...

Join co-hosts Dr. Alysha Helmrich and Dr. Todd Bridges as they introduce themselves and the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, reintroduce the show, and try to define resilience! (Previously named the Future Cities podcast -- same content, new branding!)

Academic research, no matter how scientific, can be deeply personal. Pursuing a PhD in a field like urban resilience demands an unwavering dedication to the topic driven by a genuine care for the issues at hand. While this passion can help motivate scholars, it is practically very difficult to bring one’s full self into academic endeavors, even when an institution explicitly recognizes that individuals’ unique perspectives and experiences can enrich their research and shed new light on complex problems. In this episode, Madison Horgan (PhD student, Arizona State University) interviews fellow ASU scholars Dr. Michele Clark and Taína Di...

Urban green infrastructure has the ability to make cities more sustainable. However, the exact implementation of green infrastructure and the choices that must be made during implementation are still topics for discussion. Recently, the Consolidated Urban Green Infrastructure Classification (CUGIC) was published as a tool to help policymakers, practitioners and researchers assess the state of their urban green infrastructure relevant to urban biodiversity, human well-being, and ecosystem services. In this podcast, Joeri Morpurgo (Leiden University), Dirk Voets (Head remote sensing, Cobra-Groeninzicht), Ciska van Alphen (Policy officer, Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality), and Jacco Schuurkamp (Senior policy officer...

On this month's episode of the Future Cities Podcast, Dr. Alysha Helmrich hosts Dr. Virginia Smith, who explores the future of urban hydrology. She covers a lot of ground! From the magnitude of flood impacts, the differences between hydrology and urban hydrology, the stakeholders in urban flooding, data collection and management for stormwater, integration of AI in stormwater management, and social vulnerability and equity. Tune in to hear all the details!

Of note, Virginia is hiring students! You can reach out directly via email or apply online at: https://www1.villanova.edu/university/engineering/faculty-research/Resilient-Water-Systems.html<...

On this month's episode of the Future Cities podcast, Alysha Helmrich interviews her colleague, Katherine (Kat) Shayne. Kat Shayne is the CEO of Can I Recycle This? (CIRT). A start-up homed in Athens, GA that helps cities, counties, businesses, and individuals properly dispose of products. Kat shares her own journey in sustainability that led her to creating CIRT and describes CIRT's mission and goals. You can learn more about CIRT at www.cirt.tech. You can also learn more about the Circularity Informatics Lab at https://www.circularityinformatics.org/.

Follow our guest on T...

Dr. Catherine de Rivera leads a conversation with Carole Hardy and Eric Butler.  They dive into the social, ecological, and technological aspects of connectivity with an emphasis on the benefits of ecological connectivity. This podcast is rooted in work co-produced with researchers and practitioners from Portland, Oregon. This episode also features Sahan T. M. Dissanayake, Leslie Bliss-Ketchum, Jennifer Karps, and Lori Hennings. 

Referenced Articles:
Butler 2022
Hardy 2022

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If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more ab...

Dynamic Criticality is the idea that organizations must constantly reform their priorities in the face of volatile environments to maintain an adaptive state. Infrastructure research has yet to identify competencies that might aid infrastructure organizations in achieving dynamic criticality. Ryan Hoff discusses how competencies from other organizations can inform how infrastructure managers can better prepare their organizations to shift priorities in the face of disturbances.

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Suggested Readings:
Dynamic Criticality article
Susan Clark’s work
Mikhail Chester’s governance work
Mikhail Chester’s autopoiesis work
Book rec: The Black Swan by Tal...

Pervasive across infrastructure literature and discourse are the concepts of centralized, decentralized, and distributed systems, and there appears to be growing interest in how these configurations support or hinder adaptive and transformative capacities towards resilience. There does not appear to be a concerted effort to align how these concepts are used, and what different configurations mean for infrastructure systems. This is problematic because how infrastructure are structured and governed directly affects their capabilities to respond to increasing complexity. Dr. Alysha Helmrich recommends a multi-dimensional framing of de/centralization through a network-governance perspective where capabilities to shift between stability and...

Dr. Christina H. Fuller shares her work on environmental health and justice, particularly examining how air quality varies down to a block-level across communities. She provides insights on conducting participatory research within frontline communities and advocating for more inclusive environmental justice research. Dr. Fuller also discusses her diverse work experiences from industry, non-profits, consulting, and academia.

Follow our guest on Twitter: @DrCHFuller

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If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the NATURA project at natura-net...

Dr. Mikhail Chester hosts Dr. Stephanie Pincetl, whose work engages a multitude of disciplines (from engineers to urban planners to economists) to advance urban sustainability science and decision-making for water, energy, transportation, and land use systems. She explores how understanding and synthesizing these diverse systems surrounding our complex urban systems opens opportunities for future alternatives.

This episode is part of a continuing series: Infrastructure and the Anthropocene Forum.

Follow our hosts:
Dr. Mikhail Chester (@mikhailchester)
Dr. Stephanie Pincetl (@SPincetl)

Recommended Readings:
Transforming California: A Political History of Land...

The built environment has significantly contributed to climate change, and it is becoming increasingly clear that net-zero carbon emissions is not enough. Phil Horton and Alysha Helmrich discuss the importance of carbon capture and explore how cities may play a role in carbon banking. In this episode, we will discuss the role that buildings and urban infrastructure will play in carbon draw-down and decarbonization through: end-to-end carbon accounting, building material innovations, and emergent alignment and coordination across critical stakeholders and agencies in the future of our urban environments.

Follow the hosts on Twitter:

Distributive, procedural, recognitional justice are vital for nature-based solutions, but these dimensions of justice have multiple and conflicting meanings. Drs. Katinka Wijsman and Marta Berbés-Blázquez explore how political theory and philosophy help in understanding differences and conflict. They present five key justice questions for researchers and practitioners to reflect with. One major takeaway? Praxis and reflectivity are crucial to balancing the act of practicing justice.

Topic paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2022.06.018

Hosts & Twitter handles: