Master of Science in Environmental Resilience

An introduction to what is known about Earth’s climate system and its interactions with natural systems. Additionally, we will dig into the science of climate change and assess the utility of various climate models for future projections of climate. Students will gain skills in practical applications of climate data and how to best communicate those results to a diverse set of stakeholders.

An introduction to both the theory and practice of climate resilience. Course covers frameworks for conceptualizing exposure, risk, vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience; theory and evidence of disproportionate impacts; and the principles, components, and strategies for building climate resilience plans. This course draws upon the US Climate Resilience Toolkit’s Steps to Resilience framework.

This course will introduce students to the field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and demonstrate its applications to the fields of climate science, community resilience, and risk and vulnerability. Through a series of lectures, case-studies, and computer lab exercises, students will gain an understanding of basic GIS principles, data exploration, and geospatial analysis. Students will learn to use a variety of software platforms, including ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Desktop, QGIS, among others to integrate and incorporate climate, resilience, and natural hazard datasets into GIS for further evaluation and analysis. Students will also be introduced to basic geospatial communication and learn how to create static and interactive maps, online GIS web viewers, Dashboards, and StoryMaps to convey complex data. Upon completion of the course, students should feel comfortable using GIS tools to explore spatial data, perform simple analyses, and communicate climate and resilience information to end-users, decision-makers, and other stakeholders.

This course will deepen student’s skills learned in the intro GIS course and cover a range of advanced topics, such as detailed geospatial analysis, raster analysis and modeling, network analysis, Python automation, and resilience assessments. Students will become more familiar with data scale and data sources, learning how to select the best climate data for a project’s needs, and will be introduced to downscaled and gridded data. They will gain hands-on experience working with GIS-based climate data to better understand future climate projections and scenarios. This course will also introduce climate and vulnerability assessments. Students will become familiar with the Steps to Resilience process, utilizing GIS tools and analyses to identify people and community assets most vulnerable to a changing climate, as well as how to quantify, visualize, and communicate the concepts of exposure, adaptive capacity, vulnerability, and risk.

To gain practical experience in the field of climate resilience, students will complete an internship with a community partner (governmental, non-profit, or for-profit organization). As part of the practicum experience, students will also work with the MSER course instructor and their host organization to develop a proposal for an applied research project, to be completed in the following Summer.

This course applies principles from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and information visualization to the design of interactive data tools and systems. Through hands-on projects, case studies, and research papers, students will explore the effectiveness of data systems in environmental planning from multiple perspectives. Students will learn how to select between different visual displays of information; assess the usability and effectiveness of data interfaces; communicate data insights through clear, compelling narratives; and understand the possibilities and challenges of using interactive data tools to inform public planning.

This course focuses on understanding how economic and financial theories and tools can be applied to enhance societal and environmental resilience to climate impacts. Course covers the economic implications of climate risk, risk assessment and management, weather and climate insurance, environmental valuation for cost-benefit analysis, carbon pricing and trading schemes, the circular economy, and the economics of digital technology and infrastructure for climate resilience.

Students learn to identify ethical and social aims of resilience planning in various contexts and to evaluate metrics for alignment with public values. Assigned materials will introduce core concepts and vocabulary in ethical reasoning and how these apply to value commitments in resilience planning: fairness, freedom, safety and security, equal access to information and emergency response, and community well-being. Students complete an individualized project with a stakeholder analysis that includes a vulnerability assessment and a proposed set of ethically sensitive and informed resilience metrics.

In this course we cover linear models in matrix notations and multiple linear regression models. Distribution results, categorical predictors, interactions, connection to ANOVA, sums of squares, diagnostics, remedial methods of common violation of model assumptions, and ridge and nonparametric regression will be discussed. Students will learn to understand the structure of linear regression models in theory, distinguish between regression and ANOVA models, identify the appropriate model for real-data analysis, and implement and correctly interpret real-data analysis with software.

Interest in evidence-based policy and programming has become widespread in numerous sectors, including public health, education, economic development, and environmental policy. Generation of this evidence requires that those implementing social policies and programs engage in monitoring and evaluation to identify and understand their impacts. This course covers the dominant frameworks and tools used in monitoring and evaluation; the art and science of causal inference; and the experimental, quasi-experimental, and mixed methods used in impact evaluation, with specific applications to evaluating the impacts of interventions designed to build climate resilience.

Students will complete an applied research project that serves the climate resilience information needs of a community partner.