The Climate Program Offices' newly launched Adaptation Sciences (AdSci) Program is announcing 20 new 2-year projects in Fiscal Year 2021 focused on vulnerable U.S. coastal communities planning for the future impacts of flooding in the context of climate change and other stressors. The competitively selected projects total $4,846,215 in grants. Melissa Haeffner (PI), along with Sahan Dissanayake and J Forest Williams (Co-PIs) received $299,605 of this grant for their research on 'Trust and Community Acceptance of Coastal Flood Mitigation'.
This project will provide methods to test hypotheses about the drivers of adaptation response in the context of coastal flooding management. They will design game theory-based experiments and surveys to measure how much trust individuals have in institutions who are involved in coastal flooding mitigation projects due to sea level rise. They will test if more trust leads to more acceptance of projects meant to adapt to climate change and how these institutions can build more trust.