Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Understanding the Perceptions of Urban Residents in the U.S. Gulf Coast Region towards Green Infrastructure

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

Flooding continues to pose significant threats to the physical, social, and economic well-being of the communities in the Gulf Coast region. In urban coastal communities that have increasingly dense development and growing populations, more and more people, infrastructure, and property are put at risk from chronic, disruptive flooding events. Traditional structural mitigation and protection measures, such as flood barriers and levees, often require extensive investment in buildings and infrastructure and sometimes result in unintended consequences caused by interruption to natural processes, inadequate protection, and even failure during disaster events.

A potentially complementary approach is the development of green infrastructure (GI) that has been demonstrated to be an efficient flood mitigation measure and an effective approach for building community resilience. Despite governmental efforts in promoting GI, at the local level, urban residents sometimes lack the motivation to adopt GI or contribute to the development of GI within their communities.

Even when GI is provided at no cost or with incentives, resident participation rates in GI projects have been low. The lack of acceptance and adoption of GI may prevent coastal communities from taking full advantage of the array of services afforded by GI and miss opportunities to build resilience and protect themselves from future extreme flood events.

This research aims to better understand public perceptions of GI by examining the attitudes, preferences, and actions related to GI of residents living in cities in the Texas Gulf Coast region. A combination of methods, such as survey research, multivariate statistical analysis, Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS), and spatial analyses provide a comprehensive analysis of public perceptions towards GI within the Texas Gulf Coast.

This research implements novel interdisciplinary methods to examine the perceptions of residents towards GI from several Texas Gulf Coast cities. First, the research applies Protection Motivation Theory as a theoretical framework to explore factors shaping residents’ evaluations and attitudes toward GI practices. These factors include residents’ perceptions of flood risk, their previous flood experience, their reliance on public flood protection, the efficacy and costs of GI practices, and their perceived ability to perform these actions.

Second, the study conducts an online map-based survey through PPGIS which provides spatial detail about residents’ perceptions of the current urban green space network (the key component of GI) and needs for green space development within the broader community. The PPGIS method complements conventional survey techniques to expand understandings of how local residents perceive their urban green spaces and surrounding community in addition to providing insight on the extent to which the public’s perceptions of flood vulnerability align with experts opinion of local planning agencies.

Findings can directly support local governments, decision makers, and urban planners in their effort to identify more effective GI planning and policy that can meet the needs of their residents and encourage implementation. In turn, the work assists communities' efforts to build capacity to mitigate future flood hazards resulting in more resilient Gulf Coast communities.

Applications of this work could be implemented in many other coastal communities vulnerable to flood hazards in the United States and worldwide.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.