Overview of Community-Driven Research

3CRS seeks to go beyond traditional research — building a co-created infrastructure for coastal climate resilience that blends data, modeling, community knowledge, and practical tools. Through a coordinated set of research themes (the RTs), 3CRS is knitting together:

• Community-driven engagement with working waterfront residents and stakeholders to ground projects in local context and lived experience.
• A shared data and sensing network, enabling localized environmental monitoring (water levels, flooding, tides, hazards) in port communities across Rhode Island and Maine.
• High-resolution hazard modeling and forecasting systems, designed to translate sensor data and climate projections into actionable risk scenarios for storms, sea-level rise, and coastal flooding.
• Tools for visualization, planning, and decision support, giving communities accessible ways to interpret data, explore scenarios, and assess vulnerabilities.
• Health, equity, and resilience metrics, incorporating social and environmental dimensions — from infrastructure exposure to social vulnerability and public health risk.
• Training, capacity building, and long-term knowledge systems, so that participating communities, local governments, and agencies — not just researchers — gain lasting capability to respond to climate stresses and adapt over time.

Through this integration, 3CRS is not only producing scientific and technical outputs — but building collective capacity and shared infrastructure that can be scaled and adapted across coastal New England and beyond.