How big does an urban garden need to be to support pollinators and other important insects? What kinds of plants lead to the most biodiverse space? How should homeowners manage their gardens to support the natural world? Get the full garden scoop with PhD researcher Joeri Morpurgo, from University Leiden in the Netherlands! Morpurgo and his colleagues visited urban gardens throughout Amsterdam and counted all the different plant and insect species they could find. Some key findings? Gardens can ...
Dec 18, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Big, leafy shade trees, burbling creeks, and access to recreation in beautiful natural areas: most people intuitively know that these kinds of natural amenities create pleasant communities, and houses located close to these kinds of resources tend to sell for more than those without. What folks often aren't thinking about is the fact that these resources have other benefits too--including filtering stormwater, sequestering carbon, and cooling neighborhoods. But how can we use policy to help...
Nov 15, 2024•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lauren McPhillips didn't always dream of being a professor, but she knew she loved solving problems. After earning three degrees in Earth systems science and environmental engineering at Cornell University, McPhillips completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Arizona State University, where she met our host Alysha. Now, she's working on ecological and water resources engineering problems from green stormwater infrastructure to solar implementation. In her position as a researcher...
Oct 16, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Water is a natural resource all of us rely on, but there's a lot of thought and work that goes into being able to turn on your tap. How do we make sure water is accessible to everyone? Who does a water source belong to? And why is getting water out West so complicated? This month, hosts Alysha and Todd are joined by Dr. Ben Rachunok, an assistant professor at the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at NC State University. Rachunok studies how communities evaluat...
Sep 16, 2024•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Introducing Dr. Brian Bledsoe, Director of the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Georgia and farmer, guitar player, and dad (not in that order.) Our hosts Alysha Helmrich and Todd Bridges join Bledsoe in reviewing his lifelong commitment to research and interdisciplinary collaboration. His career has largely focused on river management and hydrology, leading him to work not just with engineers but ecologists, eco...
Aug 21, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast This month, our host Alysha Helmrich and her guest Lynn Abdouni are coming to you live from halfway across the world. This pair of UGA engineering professors recently visited Doha, Qatar for a meeting about the Proactive Resilience Plan (PReP), a collaboration between UGA, Texas A&M, and the Qatar Foundation. During their trip, they took a moment to chat about urban morphology: "the study of the buildings, the streets, and the spaces in between them." "We're talking about...
Jun 17, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast This month, we're welcoming practitioners from Atlanta Regional Commission: Katherine Zitsch, Deputy COO, and Jon Philipsborn, Climate and Resilience Manager. Regional commissions work on many subject areas across a metropolitan area, from community development and transportation to water security and climate change. At ARC, resilience is a key defining factor in how they make decisions around all of these topics and more. In this episode, hosts Alysha and Todd and their guests discuss how ...
May 15, 2024•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast This month, anthropologist and historian Dr. Eric Cline and USACE research social scientist Dr. Ben Trump come together with hosts Alysha and Todd to explore large-scale regional destabilization and collapse in the Late Bronze Age. Around 1200 B.C., an interconnected network of eight large, thriving civilizations collapsed in a matter of decades. Dr.s Cline and Trump wanted to explore how this collapse came about, whether the civilizations could have predicted or prevented it, and what resilienc...
Apr 15, 2024•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast This month features a special guest. The Honorable Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, visited UGA for the Southeast Defense Communities Resilience Workshop this week. During her busy visit to Athens, she stopped by to chat with Alysha and Todd about climate resilience in the U.S. Army: on military bases, in outreach projects and construction, and overseeing climate policies. Ms. Jacobson is an experienced environmental lawyer who previousl...
Mar 15, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Alysha and Todd speak with Marta Berbés-Blázquez and Stephanie Cruz Maysonet from the University of Waterloo about the implementation of Nature-based Solutions in the Global South. NbS research has primarily taken place in the Global North. The group discusses how to build solutions that satisfy the ecological, economic and sociopolitical needs of the Global South. Berbés-Blázquez introduces the idea of "urban labs," spaces for communities to engage in place-based experimentation. Cruz...
Feb 15, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Alysha and Todd are joined by Kyle McKay (USACE Research Civil Engineer) and Charles van Rees (Conservation Scientist at UGA) to discuss BIODIVERSITY- and spoiler alert, it's a lot bigger than bugs and bunnies. Biodiversity is an ecological concept that can be difficult to quantify but is critical for environmental stability. It's also something that engineers working on nature-based projects have to keep in mind for the creation and restoration of natural infrastructure systems. Kyle&...
Dec 15, 2023•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast On i nterdisciplinary collaboration, promoting resilience projects and disaster management strategies with Executive Director of ASCE, Tom Smith Alysha Helmrich and Todd Bridges are joined by Tom Smith, Executive Director of the American Society of Civil Engineers, to discuss interdisciplinary collaboration between engineers, policy experts, and environmental managers. The group engages in a detailed discussion of how to promote resilience projects and disaster management strategies. Find the fu...
Nov 15, 2023•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Join co-hosts Dr. Alysha Helmrich and Dr. Todd Bridges as they introduce themselves and the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, reintroduce the show, and try to define resilience ! (Previously named the Future Cities podcast -- same content, new branding!)
Oct 01, 2023•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Academic research, no matter how scientific, can be deeply personal. Pursuing a PhD in a field like urban resilience demands an unwavering dedication to the topic driven by a genuine care for the issues at hand. While this passion can help motivate scholars, it is practically very difficult to bring one’s full self into academic endeavors, even when an institution explicitly recognizes that individuals’ unique perspectives and experiences can enrich their research and shed new light on complex p...
Sep 01, 2023•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Urban green infrastructure has the ability to make cities more sustainable. However, the exact implementation of green infrastructure and the choices that must be made during implementation are still topics for discussion. Recently, the Consolidated Urban Green Infrastructure Classification (CUGIC) was published as a tool to help policymakers, practitioners and researchers assess the state of their urban green infrastructure relevant to urban biodiversity, human well-being, and ecosystem service...
Aug 01, 2023•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this month's episode of the Future Cities Podcast, Dr. Alysha Helmrich hosts Dr. Virginia Smith, who explores the future of urban hydrology. She covers a lot of ground! From the magnitude of flood impacts, the differences between hydrology and urban hydrology, the stakeholders in urban flooding, data collection and management for stormwater, integration of AI in stormwater management, and social vulnerability and equity. Tune in to hear all the details! Of note, Virginia is hiring studen...
Jul 01, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this month's episode of the Future Cities podcast, Alysha Helmrich interviews her colleague, Katherine (Kat) Shayne. Kat Shayne is the CEO of Can I Recycle This? (CIRT). A start-up homed in Athens, GA that helps cities, counties, businesses, and individuals properly dispose of products. Kat shares her own journey in sustainability that led her to creating CIRT and describes CIRT's mission and goals. You can learn more about CIRT at www.cirt.tech . You can also learn more about the C...
Jun 01, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. Catherine de Rivera leads a conversation with Carole Hardy and Eric Butler. They dive into the social, ecological, and technological aspects of connectivity with an emphasis on the benefits of ecological connectivity. This podcast is rooted in work co-produced with researchers and practitioners from Portland, Oregon. This episode also features Sahan T. M. Dissanayake, Leslie Bliss-Ketchum, Jennifer Karps, and Lori Hennings. Referenced Articles: Butler 2022 Hardy 2022 --- If you have question...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dynamic Criticality is the idea that organizations must constantly reform their priorities in the face of volatile environments to maintain an adaptive state. Infrastructure research has yet to identify competencies that might aid infrastructure organizations in achieving dynamic criticality. Ryan Hoff discusses how competencies from other organizations can inform how infrastructure managers can better prepare their organizations to shift priorities in the face of disturbances. -- Suggested Read...
Apr 01, 2023•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pervasive across infrastructure literature and discourse are the concepts of centralized, decentralized, and distributed systems, and there appears to be growing interest in how these configurations support or hinder adaptive and transformative capacities towards resilience. There does not appear to be a concerted effort to align how these concepts are used, and what different configurations mean for infrastructure systems. This is problematic because how infrastructure are structured and govern...
Mar 01, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. Christina H. Fuller shares her work on environmental health and justice, particularly examining how air quality varies down to a block-level across communities. She provides insights on conducting participatory research within frontline communities and advocating for more inclusive environmental justice research. Dr. Fuller also discusses her diverse work experiences from industry, non-profits, consulting, and academia. Follow our guest on Twitter: @DrCHFuller --- If you have questions, comm...
Feb 01, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. Mikhail Chester hosts Dr. Stephanie Pincetl, whose work engages a multitude of disciplines (from engineers to urban planners to economists) to advance urban sustainability science and decision-making for water, energy, transportation, and land use systems. She explores how understanding and synthesizing these diverse systems surrounding our complex urban systems opens opportunities for future alternatives. This episode is part of a continuing series: Infrastructure and the Anthropocene Forum...
Jan 01, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast The built environment has significantly contributed to climate change, and it is becoming increasingly clear that net-zero carbon emissions is not enough. Phil Horton and Alysha Helmrich discuss the importance of carbon capture and explore how cities may play a role in carbon banking. In this episode, we will discuss the role that buildings and urban infrastructure will play in carbon draw-down and decarbonization through: end-to-end carbon accounting, building material innovations, and emergent...
Dec 01, 2022•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Distributive, procedural, recognitional justice are vital for nature-based solutions, but these dimensions of justice have multiple and conflicting meanings. Drs. Katinka Wijsman and Marta Berbés-Blázquez explore how political theory and philosophy help in understanding differences and conflict. They present five key justice questions for researchers and practitioners to reflect with. One major takeaway? Praxis and reflectivity are crucial to balancing the act of practicing justice. Topic paper:...
Nov 01, 2022•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Whose voice counts? Whose visualization informs the design of cities? And how do we collaborate in nurturing resilient equitable futures? Join a conversation led by Ananth Udupa between Duván López, Mathieu Feagan, Melissa Moreno, Theresa O’Neil, and Daniela Moreno. Follow the hosts on Twitter: @duvanhernan @MathieuMatt @ttttheresa @DanielaGarMo --- If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesP...
Oct 03, 2022•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast This month's episode was initially published in Spanish -- the co-hosts' native language. Today, we are publishing a dubbed English version. --- The episode discusses the NATURA Thematic Working Group 'Urban Informality and Innovation for Resilient Futures,' and the work strategy that has been developed in Bogotá, Colombia, so-called Local Labs, supported by @catunescosost, @ccdUPC, and @Unisalle. Initially, the differential focus of research on informality is discussed by Du...
Sep 15, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast This month's episode is initially being published in Spanish -- the co-hosts' native language. On September 15th, we will be publishing a dubbed English version. --- The episode discusses the NATURA Thematic Working Group 'Urban Informality and Innovation for Resilient Futures,' and the work strategy that has been developed in Bogotá, Colombia, so-called Local Labs, supported by @catunescosost, @ccdUPC, and @Unisalle. Initially, the differential focus of research on informali...
Sep 01, 2022•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast This month's episode, Heat Risk, explores the risk of heat exposure in Phoenix, AZ but has relevance across the globe with the current heat waves being experienced. Dr. Alysha Helmrich interviews Dr. Yuliya Dzyuban and Adora Shortridge about their recent studies on heat risk in Phoenix, and she discusses the Phoenix Office of Heat Response and Mitigation with the director, Dr. David Hondula. Links Yuliya's Paper: Evidence of alliesthesia during a neighborhood thermal walk in a hot and ...
Aug 01, 2022•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this month's episode, Dr. Alysha Helmrich sits down with Marissa Webber, a PhD Candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, to discuss her recent publication: A Review of Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty Applications Using Green Infrastructure for Flood Management . We also introduce our new sponsor, NATURA. Review Paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021EF002322 DMDU Book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-05252-2 --- If you have questions, commen...
Jul 01, 2022•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast This month’s podcast is brought to you by the children of Cadder Primary School in Glasgow and the Lost Woods Project to tell you all about their work on Every Tree Tells a Story in the run up to COP26 and work to create the Glasgow Children's Woodland. Please note, this episode is partially recorded outdoors due to COVID-19 restrictions. Follow the guests on Twitter: @CadderPrimary @The Lost Woods @everytree –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– If you have questio...
Jun 01, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
