NSF Org:	OIA OIA-Office of Integrative Activities
Recipient:	OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date:	August 4, 2023
Latest Amendment Date:	February 26, 2025
Award Number:	2316366
Award Instrument:	Cooperative Agreement
Program Manager:	Benjamin J. McCall bjmccall@nsf.gov  (703)292-7916 OIA  OIA-Office of Integrative Activities O/D  Office Of The Director
Start Date:	August 1, 2023
End Date:	July 31, 2027 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount:	$3,716,507.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date:	$1,868,665.00
Funds Obligated to Date:	FY 2023 = $1,868,665.00
History of Investigator:	Tyson Ochsner (Principal Investigator) tyson.ochsner@okstate.edu Jeremy Robinson (Co-Principal Investigator) Jia Yang (Co-Principal Investigator) Audrey King (Co-Principal Investigator) Amy Hagerman (Co-Principal Investigator) Saber Brasher (Former Co-Principal Investigator) Andrew Van Leuven (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office:	Oklahoma State University 401 WHITEHURST HALL STILLWATER OK  US  74078-1031 (405)744-9995
Sponsor Congressional District:	03
Primary Place of Performance:	Oklahoma State University 401 WHITEHURST HALL STILLWATER OK  US  74078-1030
Primary Place of Performance Congressional District:	03
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI):	NNYDFK5FTSX9
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s):	EPSCoR RII: Focused EPSCoR Col
Primary Program Source:	01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01AB2324DB R&RA DRSA DEFC AAB
Program Reference Code(s):	5294, 9150
Program Element Code(s):	194Y00
Award Agency Code:	4900
Fund Agency Code:	4900
Assistance Listing Number(s):	47.083

ABSTRACT

Climate change threatens rural communities across the US due to their strong dependence on natural resources and higher poverty rates and lower resilience capacity than urban areas. Thus climate change may disproportionally impact rural communities, but the majority of climate resilience research to date focuses on urban areas. Furthermore, rural residents are underrepresented across all areas of science, which may contribute to skepticism about climate change science and hinder collective action. Therefore, there is a pressing need to advance the science of rural climate resilience and to reduce climate change vulnerabilities in rural communities. This project seeks to meet that important need through the confluence of knowledge, skills, and perspectives from diverse but connected communities, disciplines, and institutions within the Mississippi River basin. The project is significant because it will engage rural communities to create shared frameworks for rural climate resilience, project rural climate change impacts and community resilience scenarios, expand social and economic opportunities for rural communities, and broaden STEM workforce opportunities for people from rural and underrepresented backgrounds. Through the collaborations between faculty and students at Oklahoma State University (OSU), University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), and Louisiana State University (LSU), along with Hispanic and Native American minority-serving institutions, Western Oklahoma State College and Northern Oklahoma College, this project will substantially advance rural climate resilience research and generate lasting improvements in rural STEM opportunities. These collaborations will lay the foundation for long-term partnerships between the Rural Renewal Initiative (OSU), Rural Prosperity Nebraska (UNL), and the Gulf Scholars Program (LSU). The project aims to touch the lives of thousands of people and translate to economic impacts in rural communities by identifying potential solutions to expected climate change-driven losses. Focusing climate resilience research on rural communities creates the potential to bridge the divide between rural and scientific communities, while creating frameworks and civic engagement strategies that may be applied in other rural communities around the world.

This project is centered around epistemological inclusivity, which allows rural perspectives to help guide the investigations. Researchers work with community members to co-create socially robust knowledge, which can enhance trust in science, provide new insights, and build social capital for climate resilience. The specific aims of this project are to: 1) Co-develop with communities a shared conceptual framework for rural climate resilience research and action informed by rural perceptions and priorities; 2) Project rural climate change impacts and community resilience scenarios using improved simulation methods accounting for slow-burn processes such as population decline; 3) Expand social and economic opportunities for disproportionately affected rural communities by helping them identify and pursue locally-relevant climate resilience strategies; and 4) Broaden STEM workforce participation for people from rural and underrepresented backgrounds by developing diverse career pathways from K16 to early-career faculty. The project will create diversified rural STEM pathways using a braided river approach. Rural and underrepresented students, including Hispanic students and Tribal Nation citizens, will benefit from new micro-credentials, STEM curriculum, and undergraduate research opportunities. The project will also support the development of Early-Career Faculty from rural and underrepresented backgrounds. Impacts of this project will be sustained through investments in STEM students and Early-Career Faculty; by creation of open-access publications, curriculum, and models; and by development of community resilience action plans. Approaches will be tested, evaluated, and refined through 2-year cycles of engagement with six focus communities, leading to the creation of a replicable model. Simulations will incorporate state-of-the-art climate projections into a suite of interconnected open-source models to estimate hazard exposure, damages, and long-term community recovery or decline with and without locally-prioritized adaptation measures. Simulation results will be shared with the communities, contributing to the development of local resilience action plans. This project is expected to expand and accelerate community resilience modeling, being among the first to develop simulation methods accounting for the paired, simultaneous slow-burn disturbances of climate change and rural depopulation.

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.

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