Cities and communities in the U.S. and around the world are entering a new era of transformational change, in which their inhabitants and the surrounding built and natural environments are increasingly connected by smart technologies, leading to new opportunities for innovation, improved services, and enhanced quality of life.

Urban communities are increasingly including Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) in their watershed management plans to manage stormwater in cities. Stormwater programs are scientifically limited by a lack of knowledge of the longevity of GSI, how real-time adaptive control can improve performance, and lack of process for using collected data in new GSI designs and policy. Further, there is no scientifically robust method to consider social equity in GSI design and planning.

Responding to risk events involves interactions among diverse stakeholders (e.g. government agencies, non-profit organizations, community residents). Such interactions are typically unbalanced and inefficiently organized, which leads to coordination failures and inefficient response. Community-based social networks offer a critical resource during crisis response, whose capacity has been significantly enhanced with the ubiquitous usage of social media and smart devices.

Extreme heat is deadly and disproportionately affects the elderly and residents of low-income neighborhoods. Extreme heat and humidity events will increase in coming years. Lack of air-conditioning and the urban heat island effect create dangerous indoor conditions. Up to 60% of older, poorly built homes in low-income areas lack AC. Combining residents’ behavior and building characteristics in machine learning (SciML) and agent-based models (ABM) will identify when residents are exposed to overheating risks in their home and connect them with resources to mitigate dangerous conditions.