RII Track-1: Climate Resilience through Multidisciplinary Big Data Learning, Prediction & Building Response Systems (CLIMBS)

LETTER OF INTENT (LOI) TO THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION LOI ID: LOI SUBMITTED DATE: LOI DUE DATE: PROGRAM SOLICITATION ID: N/A N/A 07/20/2023 NSF 23-582 PROGRAM SOLICITATION TITLE: EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program Track-1 FOR CONSIDERATION BY NSF ORGANIZATION UNIT(S) PRIMARY ORGANIZATION: Office of Integrative Activities PROJECT INFORMATION PROJECT TITLE: RII Track-1: TBD SYNOPSIS: See last page OTHER COMMENTS: Additional LOI info requested in the solicitation: Accomplishing the Track-1 proposal''s mission requires new faculty hires to complement our statewide team''s current expertise. Support for these new hires will be included in the proposal and maintained by the institutions after NSF support ends. Our partnership is committed to broadening the participation of under-represented groups in disciplines perennially near the bottom of all STEM fields with respect to diversity of the professoriate. New faculty hires will allow Kentucky''s universities to offer a modern, interdisciplinary climate science, geohazard, and sustainability curriculum that will train students and enhance workforce readiness needs, providing quantitative job skills in a way that is currently unavailable across the state. The proposal includes activities designed to engage the state''s student population within these fields both inside and outside of the classroom to prepare the next generation of scientists and citizens. "Climate monitoring, prediction and disaster response" and "climate-resilient infrastructure" are both identified in the "Target Industries and High-Priority Research Areas" section of the KY Science & Technology plan. Pursuing this research is seen as vitally important to protecting key economic sectors in the state, such as transportation, supply chain, logistics, and agriculture. By the end of the project, we anticipate a better and more holistic understanding of climate change''s impact on the commonwealth and a resilient infrastructure that protects the state''s economy. The new faculty hires supporting the existing team will result in a self-sustainable state-of-the-art research environment that will continue to advance this important research after EPSCoR support has ended. PROJECT PI - POINT OF CONTACT FOR NSF INQUIRIES CONTACT NAME: Rodney Andrews CONTACT NUMBER: 859-257-0200 EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected] DEPARTMENT: Center for Applied Energy Research SUBMITTER INFORMATION NAME: TELEPHONE NUMBER: EMAIL ADDRESS: ORGANIZATION: DEPARTMENT: CROSS DIRECTORATE LOI PRIMARY DIRECTORATE: OIA-Office of Integrative Activities (OIA) ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Research Keywords: Climate Change, Atmospheric Science, Climate Modeling, Paleoclimate, Sediments, Climate Proxies, Geomorphology, Water Resources and Quality, Floods, Landslides, Infrastructure Engineering, Natural Hazard Engineering, Emergency Management, Disaster Response SENIOR PROJECT PERSONNEL NAME ORGANIZATION DEPARTMENT EMAIL ADDRESS Czarena Crofcheck University of Kentucky Research Biosystems/AG Engineering [email protected] Foundation Edward Woolery University of Kentucky Research Earth and Environmental Sciences [email protected] Foundation L. Sebastian Bryson University of Kentucky Research Civil Engineering [email protected] Foundation Michael McGlue University of Kentucky Research [email protected] Foundation PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS University of Louisville Research Foundation Inc Western Kentucky University Page 1 of 3 Northern Kentucky University Morehead State University Eastern Kentucky University Murray State University Thomas More College Page 2 of 3 Kentucky is a hotspot of overburdened and underserved communities, due to the complex threats to human life, property, and agriculture posed by climate change, coupled with low baseline income and population health. Yet climate change remains poorly understood and understudied across Kentucky, and this knowledge gap limits our ability to provide climate-smart solutions that help to build resilience in low-income communities. Motivated by this shortcoming and recent disasters that have devastated southern Appalachia, the mission of the Track-1 proposal is to develop a new holistic understanding of the interconnected earth systems and processes operating in Kentucky, and the ability of those processes to sustain both civilization and our natural heritage as the global climate changes. Building climate change preparedness and resiliency through scientific and engineering research, education, and outreach is a central objective of the Track-1. The proposal is designed to develop new data, generate predictions, enhance preparation, and engineer response measures to advance our understanding of climate science, allied geohazards, and sustainability in Kentucky. This will be accomplished through three tasks. Task 1 seeks to produce a holistic understanding of climate change processes in Kentucky across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Task 1 addresses knowledge gaps around the atmospheric processes that generate extreme events, Kentucky’s long-term climate history, and water security under changing climate dynamics. Task 2 seeks to determine the influence of climate change on geohazards that threaten eastern Kentucky, with special emphasis on floods and landslides. Task 2 develops instrumented critical zone sites, to provide real-time, sustained environmental monitoring experiments to determine the processes influencing hazard initiation and magnitude, and thus set a path for detection and early warning. The goal of Task 3 is to establish an enhanced tools and technology framework for climate change mitigation. Task 3 addresses knowledge gaps in emergency management and disaster response best practices through cyberinfrastructure development, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Page 3 of 3