What is Managed Retreat?

Managed retreat is broadly defined as the relocation of structures or abandonment of land to manage natural-hazard risk.  Managed retreat is entering widening discussion as flooding, coastal erosion, and sea-level rise increasingly threaten human lives and property worldwide.
 

What Do We Do?

Our group was funded by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership to study post-tsunami community relocations in Japan, as well as flood mitigation and relocation efforts in the US, in order to compare and contrast different national approaches. US researchers joined Japanese colleagues in the Tohoku region during November of 2018 to assess tsunami recovery efforts, and Japanese and Australian colleagues and US colleagues toured floodplain relocation towns in the US Midwest in May of 2019.
 

Upcoming Events

We held a symposium in Tokyo on November 20, 2019, and are looking forward to co-hosting a forum in Washington DC on April 8, 2022, to share the lessons learned during our research collaboration with an international audience.
 

Publications
Pinter et al, 2019. Large-scale managed retreat and structural protection following the 2011 Japan tsunami. Natural Hazards 96: 1429.