Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

Engineering Cities to Survive Extreme Weather

Wednesday, October 7, 2015, By News Staff
Share
College of Engineering and Computer ScienceResearch and Creative

Extreme weather events can cripple crucial infrastructure that enables transit, electricity, water and other services in urban areas. This leaves cities and their inhabitants cut off and in danger. With weather extremes becoming more common—from devastating hurricanes and flooding to record drought and heat waves—it will be increasingly important to develop urban infrastructure that is more resilient, sustainable and equitable.

A flooded city

A flooded city

That is the idea behind a new Urban Resilience to Extreme Weather-Related Events Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN), recently funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). College of Engineering and Computer Science Associate Professor David Chandler,  who teaches in the civil and environmental engineering department, has joined a team of 50 researchers from 15 institutions in nine cities spanning North and South America. The NSF awarded the network $12 million over five years through its Sustainability Research Networks program, which focuses on urban sustainability.

“The goal is to analyze information pertinent to sustainability and impacts of extreme climate events—mostly extreme precipitation or extreme heat. Syracuse will focus primarily on the issue of flooding and we will be teaming up with Valdivia, Chile, as they have many of the same challenges related to rain and snow.”

The team will be working with Esri, an extremely detailed geographic information system tool, to develop 3D, interactive models for all of the cities in the project.

When streets flood with disease carriers and waste, it isn’t just unhealthy—it’s dangerous. Aging infrastructure and flooding issues tend to be more of an issue in low-income neighborhoods, meaning that this project needs to assess more than just the physical infrastructure of these cities.

The team will evaluate the social, ecological and technical systems data related to infrastructure. This includes recognizing the values of all stakeholders, from city decision makers to the people who will use and be affected by infrastructure, understanding the natural environment in which infrastructure operates and evaluating available infrastructure technology. The result will be a suite of tools supporting the assessment and implementation of urban infrastructure that is resilient, “safe-to-fail” and tailored to a particular city.

In addition to Syracuse University’s team, the UREx SRN includes teams based in Phoenix; Baltimore; Miami; New York; Portland; Hermosillo, Mexico; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Valdivia, Chile.

 

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • NSF I-Corps Semiconductor and Microelectronics Free Virtual Course Being Offered
    Wednesday, July 16, 2025, By Cristina Hatem
  • Jianshun ‘Jensen’ Zhang Named Interim Department Chair of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
    Wednesday, July 16, 2025, By Emma Ertinger
  • Traugott Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Bing Dong to Present at Prestigious AI Conference
    Wednesday, July 16, 2025, By Emma Ertinger
  • Lender Center Researcher Studies Veterans’ Post-Service Lives, Global Conflict Dynamics
    Tuesday, July 15, 2025, By Diane Stirling
  • Maxwell’s Robert Rubinstein Honored With 2025 Wasserstrom Prize for Graduate Teaching
    Tuesday, July 15, 2025, By News Staff

More In STEM

NSF I-Corps Semiconductor and Microelectronics Free Virtual Course Being Offered

University researchers with groundbreaking ideas in semiconductors, microelectronics or advanced materials are invited to apply for an entrepreneurship-focused hybrid course offered through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program. The free virtual course runs from Sept. 15 through…

Jianshun ‘Jensen’ Zhang Named Interim Department Chair of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) is excited to announce that Professor Jianshun “Jensen” Zhang has been appointed interim department chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE), as of July 1, 2025. Zhang serves as executive director of…

Star Scholar: Julia Fancher Earns Second Astronaut Scholarship for Stellar Research

Julia Fancher, a rising senior majoring in physics and mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), a logic minor in A&S and a member of the Renée Crown University Honors Program, has been renewed as an Astronaut Scholar for…

Traugott Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Bing Dong to Present at Prestigious AI Conference

Professor Bing Dong was recently selected to lead a workshop on artificial intelligence (AI) at NeurIPS, the Conference and Workshop on Neural Information Processing Systems. Founded in 1987, NeurIPS is one of the most prestigious annual conferences dedicated to machine learning and AI research. Dong’s workshop…

6 A&S Physicists Awarded Breakthrough Prize

Our universe is dominated by matter and contains hardly any antimatter, a notion which still perplexes top scientists researching at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The Big Bang created equal amounts of matter and antimatter, but now nearly everything—solid, liquid, gas or plasma—is…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.