New Publication on Coastal Industrial Communities

CFAR members recently published an article in Natural Hazards Review titled, “Toxic Fear: Climate, Contamination and Worries about Future Flooding in Coastal Industrial Communities.” The research focuses on Houston following Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Results show that residents who suspected their neighborhoods were not only flooded but also contaminated by the storm expressed significantly higher concern about future flooding, not just in general but also in terms of likely impacts to their home, health and neighborhood — pillars of community resilience. See the Rice release here.

First of Its Kind Tool Maps Managed Retreat Nationwide

CFAR recently published a new national, interactive map that allows users to see where FEMA has funded home buyout programs nationwide (2007-2017) as well as where participants and nonparticipants moved. You may visit the tool here. The companion piece in The Conversation can be found here.

Upcoming Workshop: Green Infrastructure & the Polycrisis

There has been much discussion in recent years of the 21st century as a time of polycrisis, involving complex entangled problems such as climate change, social inequality, economic instability, unsustainable resource use, energy insecurity, pandemics, migration and political conflict. Advocates of this analytic approach suggest the need for holistic responses that appreciate the systemic interdependency and feedback loops that connect different crisis areas together.

Green Infrastructure (GI) as a nature-based solutions paradigm has been coming into focus since the 1990s and has received significant attention from both scholars and practitioners for its ability to positively impact multiple overlapping social, environmental, economic and health issues, among them, stormwater management, climate adaptation, heat stress, biodiversity, local food production and soil depletion, improved air and water quality, even sustainable energy production.

This workshop in April 2026 will assess to what extent GI is capable of providing an integrated response to various aspects of the polycrisis. Where, specifically, can GI help and what are its limits? How should GI interventions be most effectively implemented and scaled? What success stories should we be sharing and what cautionary tales should we be studying?

Speakers will include experts in GI drawn from a wide range of fields including: architecture, civil engineering, environmental studies, geography, policy and urban planning. CFAR plans to release a report or white paper based upon the proceedings from this workshop.

Featured Research

Find out if a hazardous polluter near you is flood-prone here. The flooding of Coastal Industrial Communities presents serious challenges for the short- and long-term environmental health and safety of nearby residents. In this featured research we review those challenges and provide an interactive map for assessing site-specific risks in and around your neighborhood.

Mission

The mission of the Center for Coastal Futures & Adaptive Resilience (CFAR) is to advance transformative, social scientific research that empowers coastal communities confronting the twin challenges of climate change and social inequality. Based in Rice’s School of Social Sciences, CFAR integrates the diverse methodological expertise of allied fields, faculty and partners to empower adaptive resilience that cannot be achieved through individual effort or technological innovation alone. Launched in 2024, we pursue this mission through research relevant to Houston, the Gulf region, and coastal areas worldwide. Current foci include: Coastal Industrial Communities; Urban Infrastructure Futures; Climate Adaptation; and, Disaster Recovery & Resilience.

Vision

We recognize that the expanding array of disciplines and practices now invoking resilience can sow confusion in ways that protect the status quo. We also believe that alternative forms of resilience are possible – ones that empower meaningful change in how resilience is advanced and for whom. In this vein, CFAR strives to develop adaptive resilience based on three core values. (1) Marginalized groups and communities should not have to assume sole responsibility for adapting to the impacts of climate change and countering exclusionary plans to address those impacts. (2) Researchers should help counter such tendencies by increasing institutional capacities to deepen analyses, broaden collaborations, and foster more creative, just solutions as internal and external situations evolve. (3) In this way, adaptive resilience must not simply be a response to climate change but a movement toward new ways of learning, doing, and improving the well-being of all groups and communities facing uncertain coastal futures.