What’s New
Hurricane Recovery in the Bahamas: Turning Good Intentions into Good Decisions
Recovery in the Bahamas will have to be a balancing act. Plans will need to allow for transition toward long-term strategic goals for the nation, but also be mindful of not perpetuating inequities, write CRGC director Melissa Finucane and RAND colleague Joie Acosta. Read more »
Paper Explores Challenges Reaching Vulnerable Populations in Gulf Coast
Delivering risk and crisis communication to U.S. Gulf Coast residents poses a unique challenge to individual and organizational responders, according to a new paper by Elizabeth Petrun Sayers and several CRGC coauthors. Their findings highlight significant differences in preferred communication channels and levels of trust in information sources. Read more »
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How can we help and what can we learn about resilience from the Australian fires?
www.rand.org/blog/2020/01/australias-fires-respond-now-but-also-measure-toll.html
Australia's Fires: Respond Now, but Also Measure Toll on People for the Future
www.rand.org
As an Australian, Melissa Finucane has watched with anguish as massive bushfires have devastated wide swaths of her home country. As a researcher who studies community resilience, she can't help but think of how much blood, sweat, tears and money will be required to recover.CRGC researchers Andrew M Parker, Melissa L. Finucane, Lynsay Ayer, Rajeev Ramchand, Vanessa Parks, and Noreen Clancy had a new article published in the journal Risk Analysis last month.
"Persistent Risk-Related Worry as a Function of Recalled Exposure to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Prior Trauma" had the unexpected finding that those who moved into the region after the oil spill showed similar levels of worry to residents exposed to the spill, and higher levels than residents who did not recall being exposed to the spill.
Read more about this and other CRGC research on our Research Results page.
Research Results | Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities
www.resilientgulf.org
Consortium Research Results Researchers with the Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities have published several papers, reports, and articles as a result of their work with CRGC. We are pleased to share their research here. Persistent Risk-Related Worry as a Function of Recalled Exposure to the De...How can scientists and policy makers work together to improve Gulf Coast people and places? That topic was the focus of discussions at a GoMRI-funded synthesis and legacy workshop in Mobile, AL, earlier this month.
Organized by Drs. David Cochran (University of Southern Mississippi) and Tim Rehner (Ohio State University), the workshop aimed to foster interdisciplinary collaborations and develop recommendations for future research about coupled natural-human systems in the Gulf of Mexico.
CRGC director Dr. Melissa Finucane participated and noted key themes across the presentations and discussions were the need both to identify key policy decisions and to generate useful information to inform those decisions.
(Pictured: Dr Jeff Bielicki, Ohio State University, speaking about “Science and Advocacy, Challenges of Shared Space”)
gulfresearchinitiative.org
July 10-12, 2019 Mobile, AL Core Area 5 The organizers of this workshop seek to define actionable areas of future research in Core Area 5 (Ecosystem Services, Human Health, and Socioeconomics) ...Another (unfortunate) reason why our work continues to remain relevant.
New Estimate for an Oil Leak: A Thousand Times Worse Than Rig Owner Says
www.nytimes.com
The leak, about 12 miles off the Louisiana coast, has been releasing oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico since 2004, when a bundle of undersea pipes ruptured.As the article below notes, the region has had to deal with "a hurricane, an oil rig, an underwater mudslide" — CRGC director Melissa Finucane explored these overlapping challenges in a Times Picayune commentary last November: www.nola.com/opinions/2018/11/overlapping-environmental-disasters-put-a-strain-on-gulf-communitie...
Projects
Health, Social, and Community Economic Impacts of the Oil Spill
We are surveying individuals in Gulf of Mexico communities to assess the health, social, and economic impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on households. Read More »
Economic Impact of the Oil Spill on Industry
We are assessing the economic impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the fishing, fish/seafood processing, and tourism industries. Read More »
Community Action Planning
We are developing and implementing a community action planning process to increase awareness and use of evidence-based resilience strategies. Read More »
Targeted Information for Disaster-Affected Communities
We are developing a web portal, tailored to the needs of communities in the Gulf region, to deliver targeted information about oil spills. Read More »
Mentor the Next Generation
We are training undergraduate and graduate students in disaster resilience research and outreach methods. Read More »
Real-Time Program Self-Evaluation
We are evaluating the Consortium’s performance as we do our work, to demonstrate success and to improve our research, outreach, and education activities. Read More »