Seminar: Jessica Lillquist

The Lab’s April seminar presentation will be an overview of Jessica Lillquist’s doctoral research: Understanding Opportunities and Limitations of Nature-based Strategies for Transformative Adaptation: An Examination of Stakeholder Values and Evolving Social Contracts in the Case Study of Boston.

Jessica is a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Boston in the School for the Environment. Her research, supported by the Stone Living Lab, focuses on the influence of human values and interactions in determining adaptation responses, including proposed local climate change adaptation strategies and policies such as Nature-based Strategies (NBS).

There are engineering challenges associated with these adaptation strategies, particularly in the coastal urban context, but equally important are those challenges relating to community dynamics. These include social, institutional, and political dynamics. In the case of the diverse City of Boston, it is critical to explore various community perspectives regarding proposed local climate change adaptation strategies and policies.

The results of Jessica’s research demonstrate how climate change adaptation strategies designed and informed by diverse stakeholder perspectives and values, placing the human face of climate change at the center of adaptation discourse, can support transformative adaptation for a community. The key contribution of this research is a deeper understanding of the socio-economic and political processes that shape the choice of adaptation strategies and the potential outcomes for an urban coastal community in fundamental ways.