Program: Managed Retreat Forum
National Academy of Sciences Building: Lecture Room (building map)
2101 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC
Friday April 8, 2022, 1:00 - 5:15 PM EST
Keynote Speakers (1:00pm to 2:10pm EST)
Dr. Nicholas Pinter - Managed Retreat in North America
Dr. Nicholas Pinter is the Roy J. Shlemon Professor of Applied Geosciences and Associate Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California Davis. He is an expert in earth-surface processes, including flooding, river systems, hydrology, and natural hazards assessment. Professor Pinter studies earth-surface processes and hydrology applied to a range of problems. The main thrust of this research is on river dynamics, flooding, floodplain management, and mitigation of flood risk and other natural hazards. Pinter has worked primarily on large alluvial rivers and their floodplains, including the Mississippi, Missouri, Rhine, Danube, and others. Professor Pinter’s work also involves assessing and guiding state and federal policy on rivers and flooding, including assessment of managed retreat projects.
Dr. Mikio Ishiwatari - Managed Retreat in Japan
Dr. Mikio Ishiwatari is Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo and Senior Advisor in disaster management and water resources management for the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). He provides advice and guidance on JICA’s policies and operations, and conducts project formulation, administration, and review, in climate change adaptation, disaster management, and water resources management, and currently conducts research works in these areas. Dr. Ishiwatari has also served as a government engineer at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Japan, as an urban development specialist at the Asian Development Bank, and as a senior disaster risk management specialist at the World Bank, where he was the focal point for producing the report “Learning from Megadisaster: Lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake”.
Dr. Idowu "Jola" Ajibade - Managed Retreat in the Global South
Dr. Idowu "Jola" Ajibade is an Assistant Professor in Geography at Portland State University. Her research focuses on how individuals, communities, and cities respond to global climate change and their different capacities for adaptation and transformation. She explores adaptation in the context of resilience planning, eco-industrialization, eco-gentrification, uneven development, and managed retreat. She draws on urban political ecology and environmental justice lenses to interrogate both conventional and alternative approaches to adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and urban sustainability. Her work often explores unconventional approaches and partnerships such as the role of social entrepreneurs, grassroots coalitions, cooperatives, and small businesses in promoting a shareable economy, sustainable lifestyle changes, low-carbon development, and socially just resilience planning in cities.
Panelists (2:30pm to 4:15pm EST)
Dr. David Casagrande
Dr. David Casagrande is an ecological anthropologist and serves as the director of Environmental Studies at Lehigh University, studying how culture shapes the way humans interact with natural environments. Prof. Casagrande has published extensively around issues of cultural-ecological sustainability in arid and coastal environments and adaptation to climate change. He was formerly the editor of the Journal of Ecological Anthropology.
Charles "Chuck" Setchell
Mr. Chuck Setchell serves as the Senior Shelter and Settlements Adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, where he works to promote safer homes and communities through improved urban planning and housing construction. For the past 24 years, Mr. Setchell has helped spearhead efforts to provide emergency and permanent housing for displaced people throughout the world, incorporating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation measures when possible and appropriate.
Susan Durden
Ms. Susan Durden currently works as a senior economist with the Institute for Water Resources (IWR) of the Corps of Engineers in Alexandria, VA. IWR is a leader in the development of planning methods and tools to address economic, social, institutional and environmental needs in water resources planning and policy. Ms. Durden has served variously as an economist, study manager, project manager and supervisor for the Corps of Engineers, focusing on communicating science to the public, monetary values for environmental benefits, models as tools in decision making, and partnerships with non-traditional customers.
Jamie Simmonds
In 2011, some of the most devastating flooding Australia has ever seen hit large parts of the Australian state of Queensland, with particularly deadly and devastating effects in the small town of Grantham. As the leader of the ‘Strengthening Grantham Project’, Jamie Simmonds oversaw the effort of relocating much of the town to higher ground, ensuring the safety of the community from future flood events. The Strengthening Grantham Project is regarded globally as a leading example of a successful town relocation.
About the Moderator
Rebecca Hersher (she/her) is a reporter on NPR's Science Desk, where she reports on outbreaks, natural disasters, and environmental and health research. Since coming to NPR in 2011, she has covered the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, embedded with the Afghan army after the American combat mission ended, and reported on floods and hurricanes in the U.S. In recent years, she has focused her reporting on climate change and on and climate-driven impacts on vulnerable communities in the U.S. and around the world. Her reporting is often featured on NPR's flagship news programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and she frequently contributes to NPR's science podcast Short Wave.
The Q&A Session will be followed by a reception from 4:15 to 5:15 in the East Court, directly adjacent to the lecture room.
This event was made possible in partnership with the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.