Coastal resilienceIdentifying sources of coastal resiliency

Published 17 November 2017

As extreme weather events become more commonplace, regions of the world that get hit the hardest are often left scrambling to put the pieces of their homeland back together. ASU’s Sian Mooney, an economist, recently returned from a trip to Cuba, where the economist attended a tri-national workshop on the theme: “Enhancing Resilience of Coastal Caribbean Communities.” The workshop’s participants have been charged with defining and identifying sources of coastal resiliency and then working to implement them in the region over the next few years. 

As extreme weather events become more commonplace, regions of the world that get hit the hardest are often left scrambling to put the pieces of their homeland back together.

Sian Mooney, associate dean and professor at Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, researches the use of natural resources and the environment. She recently returned from a trip to Cuba, where the economist attended a tri-national workshop on the theme: “Enhancing Resilience of Coastal Caribbean Communities.”

It could not have been more timely.

“This is certainly a great time to be looking at [coastal resilience],” Mooney said, “because the time we had the workshop was right after Hurricane Irma, and while we were there, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico.”

The group of scientists and researchers gathered for the event have been charged with defining and identifying sources of coastal resiliency and then working to implement them in the region over the next few years. It was the first convening of the group and the project is still in the planning and discovery phase, but Mooney agreed to speak with ASU Now about initial discussions and potential trajectories.

ASU Now: How urgent is it that we address the issue of coastal resilience?
Sian Mooney:
The time is now to be looking at coastal resilience in the Caribbean. It’s time to find out what are the interventions or policies that make the most sense for each area, because it’s very diverse, so the same things don’t make sense from place to place. It’s a very complex issue.

AN: How is the region faring at the moment?
Mooney:
It really varies from location to location because in the Caribbean, you have small islands and large coastlines, like those along Florida and part of Mexico. So you can’t really define one state of coastal resilience, but one thing we can say is it’s certainly becoming much more of an issue of concern, with greater numbers of hurricanes, high winds and weather-related factors affecting the region.

When I was in Cuba, the country had just been hit by Hurricane Irma, and very fortunately for Cuba, it had not been hit by the high winds of Hurricane Irma. It was mostly subject to extremely high tides, which caused flooding and rain. But Havana showed very little evidence of the area having been hit by a hurricane, except for the boardwalk area, which was completely closed because it had been completely eroded away.