Advancing Awareness, Transparency & Education for Greater Resilience in the Built Environment

Resilience Action Fund Program

Education

Uncle Resy, a retired construction veteran, is helping his nephew Stevie's family select a home that will withstand local hazards.

'Ask Uncle Resy' is an illustrated educational series.

Resilience Incentives(S2/E1)

Season 01

ACADEMIC EDUCATION TRAINING:

Several times a year, RAF conducts graduate-level seminars at Florida International University's School of Engineering on the subjects of resilience in the built environment, sustainability, climate adaptation and lessons learned from past disaster events.

One such seminar covered the topics of the Sendai Framework for DRR, the relation between resilience, green, climate and sustainability, the issues and root causes of vulnerability in the built environment and finally specific concerns related to Florida, particularly after the near-miss disaster of Hurricane Matthew.

The presentation can be viewed via this link:

Resilience Action Fund assisted the Sustainability Curriculum Consortium to incorporate resilience in university faculty professional development and generate academic curriculum materials. RAF helped create this training webinar on the Sendai Framework and resilience in the built environment:

Support for the resilience programs of Florida International University’s Extreme Events Institute (FIU-EEI)

The past decade has seen increasing appreciation for trained professionals in natural disaster risk management and resilience capacity-building. Accelerating urban concentrations, particularly in hazard-prone areas, and lagging development standards have increased disaster vulnerabilities in many countries, which is escalating the economic and social consequences of disasters to both public and private sectors. The global annual average cost of disasters now exceeds US$300 billion, with the US itself leading in economic losses. Climate change is expected to only worsen the trend.

FIU’s Extreme Events Institute (FIU-EEI) is a trans-disciplinary research environment to address the challenges of resilience. RAF has assisted FIU-EEI in a number of programs and including co-authoring write papers on resilience, engaging interns, organizing an external advisory board, connecting it with international organizations and communicating complex messages to the general public.

RAF authored the property and real estate chapter of the FIU white paper 'Getting Ahead of the Curve for a Resilient Economy: Risks and Opportunities for Businesses in Southeast Florida'

Download (PDF, 5MB)

RAF was an author of a study directed to Miami-Dade City Mayors regarding impact on major businesses from climate-related flooding hazards.

This analyzed the risks and opportunities for those business activities most prevalent in each city.

RAF helped organize and launch the FIU-EEI External Advisory Board.

The 7-member advisory board includes industry veterans from engineering, construction, finance, insurance and media. The purpose is to provide FIU-EEI with high-level perspectives on its strategy, growth directions and organizational challenges.