MIT Climate Resilience Planning: Flood Vulnerability Study

Abstract

The MIT Flood Vulnerability Study is one key part of a broader initiative led by the MIT Climate Resiliency Committee (CRC) and the MIT Office of Sustainability (MITOS) to understand and recommend how MIT can continue to fulfill its mission in the face of intensifying climate risks over the next 100 years and beyond; risks include precipitation flooding, sea level rise/storm surge and chronic heat stress. This study seeks to translate the science of current flooding risks and future campus-based flooding risk from climate change into operational and strategic guidance for informing campus planning and management.

Inspired by the MIT Plan for Action on Climate Change, one key research and academic objective of this study is to utilize the MIT campus as a test bed for climate innovations. This study engages MIT’s global research expertise in downscaling global MIT climate models for application testing on MIT’s campus, and also collaborates with expertise and tools advancing the MIT Sustainable Stormwater and Ecological Landscape Master Plan.

This research initiative is supported by the MIT Office of Sustainability in collaboration with the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.