Penn IUR Faculty Fellows’ Summer Research Advances Urban Water Management

How to sustainably manage urban water? That question took Penn IUR Faculty Fellows to cities like Pittsburgh, where improving water quality and access are critical issues; to the Netherlands, where 93 percent of the population lives in urban areas and more than half live in areas vulnerable to flooding; and to Malawi, where innovative methods of measuring climate adaptation may one day be applied to cities around the world.  

Howard Neukrug 

As the Faculty Director of the Penn Water Center at the School of Arts and Sciences and Penn IUR Faculty Fellow, Howard Neukrug oversaw his team’s work on several projects this summer, from a stormwater plan in Pittsburgh to leading a water learning laboratory in West Philadelphia’s Cobbs Creek. What connects these projects is a focus on equitable access to water.  

In collaboration with Penn Praxis and an array of landscape and architecture partners, The Water Center explored Pittsburgh’s different geographies and demographics to create a comprehensive stormwater master plan that will reduce flooding, improve water quality, create jobs, and build more resilient communities. The research found that many of the areas with the most flooding were also home to greater numbers of people of color. “By better managing flooding issues in those areas, we will have the greatest impact on equity,” Neukrug says. 

With grant support from Penn Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships (PennCURF), the Water Center is also equipping and leading a learning laboratory at the Cobbs Creek Environmental Center. There West Philadelphia high school students learn about chemistry and water management, and Penn professors serve as guest speakers. The students also provide stakeholder engagement, sharing their experiences with Cobbs Creek, and their ideas of how to create a more fishable, swimmable, and accessible river. “All the components are there in Cobbs Creek,” Neukrug says, “But right now there's a lot of pollution, the trails are not well lit, and there's a homeless population.” The Cobbs Creek neighborhood has long been underserved, but is seeing some new investments, such as safety improvements to Cobbs Creek Parkway and a $65 million renovation of its historic public golf course. With the laboratory and restoration projects in the works, Neukrug believes the Cobbs Creek waterway has the potential to become a major educational and natural resource on par with Bartram’s Gardens or Fairmount Water Works. 

Simon Richter 

Provocative questions have been critical to the success of Project Poldergeist, a series of animated videos created by 1942 Endowed Term Professor of German Simon Richter that explore issues of sea level rise in The Netherlands. His latest video, “How Will the Netherlands Protect Itself from Climate Change?” released in September 2022, reviews the country’s options for approaching climate change and argues that accommodating sea level rise will enable more biodiversity. Richter’s previous video, “Is the Netherlands Too Deep to Fail?”  raises questions about the disconnect between ambitious plans to add significant housing stock in vulnerable areas and uncertainty about how to deal with accelerated sea level rise. “On the one hand [the Dutch are] extremely proud of their water management prowess and they promote it worldwide. On the other, they're very vulnerable,” Richter says. 

 Richter’s light-hearted animated videos, completed with a team of Penn student animators, offer a novel approach to discussing climate change. “As a professor of the humanities, my focus is on cultural questions. I use humor to address difficult, taboo subjects like managed retreat,” he says. Richter has found that being an outsider who can prod the establishment is a unique advantage. “People have told me they really appreciate what we're doing because we're able to support or amplify unpopular positions that deserve a hearing.” 

With his production partner, Joshua Mosley, a professor of fine arts, Richter will teach a course, Environmental Animation, next spring. Students will learn how to create videos that help amplify the conversation around environmental issues. 

Allison Lassiter 

As a result of the Paris Climate Agreement and other pledges to address climate change, cities and countries around the world made commitments to reduce emissions and limit global warming. But are they making progress on these goals? Assistant Professor Allison Lassiter and her collaborators, Associate Professor Leo Zulu at Michigan State University and Dr. Sosten Chiotha at LEAD Africa, are examining remote sensing tools – such as aerial imagery, and temperature and precipitation readings – to passively monitor the success of climate adaptation projects. With support from the United Nations Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and Microsoft, Lassiter explored this question this summer in Malawi. 

Lassiter is hoping that Malawi can serve as a case study for a larger exploration of this approach to observing climate adaptation in other “Least Developed Countries” (LDCs). “The work in Malawi is looking at different types of climate adaptation projects, and seeing if they’re visible in the imagery,” she says. With more objective measures of successful climate adaptation, progress on addressing climate change can more easily be compared from one city or country to another.  

Lassiter sees this work as being critical to funders and independent watchdogs. “If you’re distributing funding, you want to see that it’s being used for good projects,” Lassiter says. Even if the money is being used to good effect, she says, “It could still not be enough. Does that indicate we need to do more to support LDCs?”  

For Lassiter, who is an expert on sea level rise’s effect on urban water systems, this exploratory research in Malawi comes back to the classroom by reframing how students approach measuring climate change and adaptation. “Students come into school wanting to learn about different quantitative methods. But it’s not just number crunching, but asking: What should we looking for?” Lassiter says.