Print PageThe Miami-Dade urban region is characterized by a unique and paradoxical set of conditions and forces: a global commerce center, where assets are vulnerable to catastrophic coastal disasters; an affluent city with among the highest rates of poverty in the nation; a de-vegetated city situated between and dependent upon unique and protected natural environments; a city that receives copious rainfall, but whose freshwater supply is critically vulnerable to climatic change. What unites these strengths and vulnerabilities is their shared dependence on the interaction between local and global drivers. Our ULTRA project conceptualizes urban Miami-Dade as uniquely vulnerable to the double exposure of economic globalization and climate change, while recognizing the linkages, feedbacks and synergies between these two transformative processes as they impact local communities and vice versa. We are developing working groups of collaborators from academia, government, nongovernmental organizations and community activists to address three interrelated themes, 1) Coastal Vulnerabilities, 2) Urban Land Stewardship, and 3) Freshwater Sustainability, each focused on the following questions, respectively: 1) How do coastal social and ecological heterogeneity interact to determine vulnerability to sea-level rise? 2) How can a historical and geographical approach help us to understand present-day vegetation cover, and how do globalization and climate change influence its heterogeneity and management? and 3) What is the vulnerability of freshwater resources and quality in the presence of sea-level rise and urban development?
Results/Conclusions
This paper focuses primarily on the first two themes, using urban environmental history, recent property sales data and remote sensing technology to understand the current socioecological landscape of Miami-Dade in anticipation of a potential “no-analog” future landscape that will require significant adjustments in urban form and practices. Using this as a background, we interview community activists, planners and policymakers to determine whether and how civic engagement is coalescing around the issues of climate change, sea level rise, and neighborhood insecurity.
