Compounding Disasters in Puerto Rico:

In Fall 2019, young scholars from different universities across the US convened in a Disaster Relief and Resiliency graduate cohort challenge through an effort led by Innovation at the Nexus of food, Energy, and Water systems Educational Resources  (INFEWS-ER) .

This program facilitated a virtual collaboration in Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island impacted by multiple disasters. This collaboration leveraged previous efforts focusing on underserved communities in the municipalities of Cataño and Guaynabo, to address wicked problems.

Our goals throughout this project were twofold. First, create a virtual process by which different data, skills, and knowledge could be integrated to advance local goals. Second, build the communities map-making capacities to heighten the visualization of data collected through citizen science and inform decision making amidst disaster. This story map follows our collaboration with Caras Con Causa and highlights the resulting key outcomes.

Graphical Abstract

Interdisciplinary teams are uniquely suited to traverse emerging challenges in post-disaster settings, but there is a paucity of applied programs and research studies that leverage transdisciplinary skill sets and virtual co-production of knowledge. An interdisciplinary team of emerging scholars collaborated with a local organization in Cataño, Puerto Rico, Caras con Causa, to strengthen accessibility and usefulness of their data resources generated through citizen science and community empowerment practices.

Puerto Rico, in particular, has been subject to complex and compounding effects of multiple disasters, which are exacerbated by socio-political, climactic, and geographical challenges that further complicate relief and resilience. Communities affected by disasters (e.g. hurricanes, earthquakes, and COVID-19, among others) are key sources of information and data that can serve as a model for recovery. Transdisciplinary teamwork uniquely empowers communities with tools allowing investigators to build context and capacities for addressing multi-hazard challenges.

Virtual tools, now more critical with COVID-19, and exploratory socio-environmental community mapping methods were employed to lay groundwork for developing a high performing team and effective collaboration. The team objective was to develop methods for improving community-based disaster resiliency through participatory mapping pathways, specifically highlighting local knowledge and preferences.

A framework of transdisciplinary research and community-based development strategies was established providing a novel understanding of disaster relief and resilience by applying systems-thinking in a virtual setting and utilizing analytical tools to augment stakeholder perspectives. The resulting iterative process, driven by citizen-science and participatory mapping, is important to inform disaster planning and response policy at the local, island, and archipelagic levels.

Post-engagement interviews and reflections with stakeholders allowed for evaluation of this enhanced research process, and these yielded key insights and lessons learned, including community-scale definition of disasters and enhanced project communication methods, for impactful transdisciplinary virtual collaborations and research. These transdisciplinary methods and qualitative data outcomes are ultimately developed for and turned over to the communities and local organizations for their use, while simultaneously making meaningful contributions to disaster studies and providing tangible pathways for developing community resilience efforts.

We chose Puerto Rico as our study site. Puerto Rico consist of three Island which is frequently prone to natural disasters and impacts from climate change. Historically, these islands are subject to flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes and many more kinds of disasters.

These natural occurrences have implication for the environment for instance, water quality and change in population. The focus of this project is on Hurricane Maria, a category 4 hurricane with winds up to 155 mph in September of 2017.

Hurricane Maria brought about extreme flooding, destruction of power lines, and communities’ infrastructures. Puerto Rico’s Water quality is adversely affected as electricity to power the wastewater became nonfunctional leading to a scarcity of safe drinking water.   

The term aftershocks usually refers to the reverberations after an earthquake. Here, the film Aftershocks of Disaster mobilizes the term to capture the lasting effects of Hurricane Maria, years after its passing. Speakers discuss the need for autogestión, or community led initiatives, in light of state failure and feelings of social abandonment. Film Credit: Juan Carlos Dávila and Yarimar Bonilla 

It is in this context of autogestión amidst disaster that this collaborative project unfolds. Thus, we elevate local knowledge producers by centering citizen science in an effort to build capacity around map generation and utility for disaster resilience. 

Citizen science is an effective approach to increase public participation in environmental research. Local communities can engage in reducing and managing disasters with information and resources to take actionable steps against disaster. With the citizen science approach communities and experts can exchange knowledge to solve resilience. 

Upon seeing all of the data that could be layered into an interactive map, Caras Con Causa shared data that allowed the team to visualize their student distribution in relation to other resources. Below is one of the resulting maps which situates their students in relation to the centrality of La Ciénaga de las Cucharillas Nature Reserve. The proximity of the students to the nature reserve, in tandem with Caras Con Causa’s leadership, provides enormous potential for building environmental sustainability and disaster resiliency through citizen science and education.

Check out our C ommunity Mapping Bookdown  to learn how these maps are made!

Mangroves are an integral component of the local RNCC and are a key part of the Caras con Causa curriculum. New datasets collected through citizen science programs provide channels for community to actively pursue socioenvironmental restoration and justice.

The DRR team is comprised of Professors and Graduate Scholars of diverse backgrounds and disciplines from universities across the United States participating in transdisciplinary research under National Science Foundation projects ( #1639340  and  1833225 ) for Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems Educational Resources (INFEWS-ER) and a United States Department of Agriculture National Institute for Food and Agriculture Higher Education Challenge (USDA-NIFA-HEC) grant (#ILLU-741-624)

Our team would like to thank the agencies that supported this research and work with the communities. We woulda also like to show appreciation for all our dedicated advisors, current and previous cohort team participants, Caras con Causa organization members, collaborators and community members in Puerto Rico, and those who helped revise these various materials!