By Rory Cahill
The University of Maryland’s Climate Resilience Network on Wednesday gave a broad overview of its mission, with projects including early-warning systems for floods, measurements of the health of local waterways and other hands-on methods for tackling the climate crisis.
The group, which held their first of several seminars this semester, is made up of UMD’s leading experts on the climate crisis. The organization also collaborates with Maryland government agencies and local and regional environmental groups to achieve their goals.
Rather than focusing on in-depth research on the climate crisis, the Climate Resilience Network aims to help communities respond to climate change and its effects.
“We’re not trying to satisfy a scientific curiosity as much as we are trying to solve a problem,” said senior faculty specialist Michael Maddox on the organization’s efforts.
Maddox explained that one of the main effects of climate change in Maryland is an increase in short, intense storms punctuated by droughts. This leads to increased urban runoff (water that cannot be absorbed by the ground or by hard paved surfaces, which washes into local waterways and often carries pollutants), as well as lower groundwater storage. But one of the most dramatic effects for humans is an increase in flooding.
This is where Hydronet, one of the network’s main projects, comes in. Hydronet monitors water levels across Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay region in order to provide advance warning if there is a high likelihood of flooding.
The project, Maddox said, was “born from asking the question to a bunch of stakeholders, ‘what do you need?’”
Hence, these affordable, solar-powered monitors are stationed in areas at high risk of flooding. The Hydronet system is so precise that it can measure the likelihood of flooding on a street-by-street level.
Another issue the network is tackling is the increased salinization of fresh water sources, which poses a major risk to vital sources of drinking water. Road salts are a major source of the problem, with sewage, construction and fertilizers among the other contributing factors. The network tracks the salinity of local streams (such as the Watts Branch stream in Rockville) with a mixture of field and lab work.
The organization’s work isn’t just in the water either. The network is collaborating with UMD’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology laboratory to measure ultrafine particle pollution, which are particles so small they can be absorbed into people’s lungs. By monitoring traffic data, the two organizations can estimate concentrations of ultrafine particles in different areas.
Like many other environmental groups, the Climate Resilience Network has suffered from cancelled funding under the Trump administration. In March alone, more than 400 grants were canceled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The concept of these Grand Challenges [grant] projects are to try to sustain activity with additional resources, beyond the initial three-year investment by the university,” explained Ralph Ferraro, the associate director of UMD’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center.
One of the network’s grant projects was previously selected for federal funding, but under the current administration the funding was pulled before the project had even begun.
“It was deemed not a priority topic anymore,” Ferraro said. “It is a challenge to find federally based funding to support the [Climate Research Network] activities. There’s less opportunities out there that focus on climate resilience.”
There may be some cause for optimism, however.
The group receives funding from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System, a regional organization that collects data along the mid-Atlantic coastline and is an important part of the network’s flood monitoring efforts.
Associate professor Tim Canty doesn’t expect this to change.
“So far, our MARACOOS leadership feels confident that funding will continue,” Canty said. He explains that MARACOOS has met with leaders in Congress to emphasize the importance of their flood monitoring programs.
“So far, so good,” Canty said. “Things, we know, can change rapidly. But we’re hopeful.”
Featured Image: Ralph Ferraro (left) and Michael Maddox preparing for the presentation. Photo Credit: Rory Cahill