The growing frequency, intensity and duration of climate-related disasters worldwide poses many threats to critical infrastructure and communities, especially in regions that are particularly susceptible to extreme events. Predicting the magnitude and cascading effects of future events is difficult as many of the inputs and variables are not currently known. These kinds of deeply uncertain events, referred to as Black Swan Events, are impossible to predict; however, assessing and implementing approaches to plan for them is important to build resilience to this category of climate-related disasters.
Long-term planning efforts by regional agencies are complicated by urban resilience issues and the lack of integrated coalitions to develop holistic strategies incorporating technical, social, and economic considerations. This project pilots and demonstrates possible methods to identify and plan for future Black Swan events with resilience at the forefront of the assessment.
Team members from several disciplines and involving public and private sector practitioners and civil society actors are taking a megacommunity approach to creating a planning framework that will deliver effective management strategies. The development of this planning framework is being explored from built environment, advanced technology and institutional lenses, ultimately offering guidance on the development of effective coalitions, integrated datasets, planning and analytical approaches for decision making under deep uncertainty (DMDU), simulation tools and other resources for black swan identification and planning. This project aims to catalogue, adapt, apply and extend current best practices for planning for deeply uncertain events, sometimes exacerbated by long-standing urban chronic stressors, to selected case study locations with the ultimate objective of disseminating this planning innovation broadly.
Research Team
PI: Adjo Amekudzi-Kennedy, Ph.D.; Co-PIs: Brian Woodall, Ph.D., Jeffrey Wilson, Ph.D., Prerna Singh, Ph.D. (Graduate Research Assistant | AY 2020-21, Post-Doctoral Fellow | AY 2021-22), Katie Popp, M.S. Candidate, Graduate Research Assistant, Tanay Tak (International Affairs, Undergraduate Research Assistant | AY 2020-21), Sarah Walker (Environmental Engineering, Undergraduate Research Assistant | AY 2020-21), and Simrill Smith (Environmental Engineering, Undergraduate Research Assistant | AY 2020-21).
Collaborators
The Small Bets Team is collaborating with the Smart Cities and Inclusive Innovation Initiative, the Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain at Georgia Tech, and other external partners.
Presentations/Publications
Popp, K. Emerging Frameworks for Handling Deep Uncertainty with Applications to Long-Term Transportation Planning. M.S. Thesis. School of Civil & Environmental Engineering. Georgia Institute of Technology. August 2021.
Popp, K., Singh, P., and A. Amekudzi-Kennedy. Review of Frameworks for Handling Different Kinds of Uncertainty in a Transportation Decision Making Contexts, Annual Meeting of the Society of Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU), Nov 10-12, 2020.
Workshops
Resilience to Unknown Unknowns, Virtual Workshop & Focus Group at Georgia Institute of Technology, May 17, 2021 | Access video here.