NSF announces new awards to understand coastal systems and tackle coastal hazards

US coastlines are heavily populated areas with critical public resources, such as housing, transportation infrastructure, freshwater supplies, and electricity generation and distribution facilities. These coastlines are also increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events, sea-level rise, coastal flooding, algal blooms and tectonic hazards.

Research is needed to understand complex coastal systems and their interplay with natural hazards, human populations and the built environment. NSF’s Coastlines and People, or CoPe, program has announced $51 million in new awards to protect the natural, social and economic resources of U.S. coasts, and to help create more resilient coastal communities.

The project representing the NSF EPSCoR jurisdictions is:

Large-scale CoPe: Coastal Hazards, Equity, Economic prosperity, and Resilience (CHEER) (PI: Rachel Davidson, University of DELAWARE), Award Amount: $10,750,000.