Urban Adaptation to Climate Change

2016 Faculty Research Award

Award Period: 2016-2018

Urban adaptation is an increasingly critical area of examination in light of emerging environmental challenges such as rising sea levels in coastal cities, the increased risk of hurricane-induced flooding, limitations in natural resources and the need for greater energy efficiency.

To that end, Bruno Carvalho, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese, and Guy Nordenson, professor of architecture, have developed a one-year postdoctoral fellowship — offered through the the Climate Futures Initiative (CFI) and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities (PMI) — for a scholar with expertise in urban adaptation to climate change who can bridge the environmental sciences, social sciences, architecture and the humanities.

Chad Monfreda, whose work explores the relationship between the ways people know and govern the global environment, has been named the 2017-18 Climate Futures Initiative/Princeton-Mellon Fellow.

Educational Impacts

The larger aim of this project is to assess the impact of different urbanization models; to address ethical questions related to various adaptation scenarios; and to devise design solutions to cope with the consequences of climate change. Monfreda will develop and teach an undergraduate course that addresses how cities adapt to changing environmental conditions.