How a University of Michigan Program Is Combating Small-Town Climate Change
Goshen is a small town located in northern inland Indiana. In February of 2018, town natives were rocked by Goshen's most severe flood on record. Water infiltrated many homes and stores, including the Kroger that is normally responsible for feeding most of the people in the town. The water caused extensive damage, flooding basements and covering acres of land and roads. Jason Kauffman, the city's stormwater coordinator, knows it's very likely that another severe flood event will happen again: "It's not if, it's when."
Read More: https://news.engin.umich.edu/2022/09/...
All over the Midwest, towns are having to confront the realities of climate change: more frequent, intense storms with warmer temperatures in early spring form a set of conditions that make flooding more likely than before. Across the region, what used to be called 500-year floods are happening on an every-few-years basis. This climate-change-driven weather is often detrimental to cities that are working with decades-old infrastructure, which was not built to handle current conditions.
To lead damage control and prevention efforts, twelve Midwestern cities, including Goshen, partnered with Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessment (GLISA). This University of Michigan program uses climate data sets with advanced computer algorithms to link people and resources together. By personalizing data to its twelve partner cities, GLISA is able to more effectively predict severe weather patterns that would affect its cities in the near future. This allows cities to make actionable plans to address climate change at the local level. With this new analysis, the residents of cities like Goshen are able to foster a renewed sense of trust in themselves and their administrators to tackle the next threats posed by climate change. City officials have optimism that they can band together to collectively get through whatever will come next.
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