Boston, MA – September 10^th, 2015 – Eric Kretsch, a Master’s of Arts in Marine Affairs Student and Marine Affairs Professor Austin Becker spent the start of the Fall 2015 semester presenting at the American Society of Civil Engineers Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute Conference which focused on resilient coastal communities. The COPRI conference brings together policy makers, scientists and engineers, community planners and managers, and the community itself to exchange ideas on coastal resilience, in effort to protect coastal infrastructure from coastal storms and sea level change.

Kretsch and Becker presented Impacts of Storm Events and Resilience Options for the Port of Providence. Under the direction of Profs. Becker and Burroughs, this project engaged port of Providence stakeholders in a pilot study to assess user concerns for hurricane impacts on Rhode Island’s coastal infrastructure and their reactions to long-term, transformational, resilience concepts. Reflections on methods and preliminary results were present positively to engineers, policy makers, and other researchers. The project is currently in the results analysis phase; results will be used to improve the framework methodology to be used on other port communities in Rhode Island.