BATON ROUGE, La. (Oct. 14, 2021) – Shubhra Misra, Ph.D., PE, D.CE, D.PE, Senior Research Scientist at The Water Institute of the Gulf, was selected to be a member of the Department of Defense (DOD) Climate Action Team which developed the recently released “Department of Defense Climate Adaptation Plan.”
“It was a great honor to serve with fellow U.S. Army Corps of Engineers subject matter experts to produce this comprehensive plan that will help inform how the Department of Defense will manage and adapt to current and future climate change impacts,” Misra said.
Produced in response to President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” the plan lays out what DOD will do to account for climate change risk, such as increased risk of floods or wildfires, in planning, installation design, and operations. In addition, the plan recognizes the risk to DOD from not just single hazards, but the vulnerability to compound hazards such as combined flooding from coastal and riverine sources, which create larger cascading impacts than from a single hazard.
Misra, who was a civil engineer with the Corps in Galveston, Texas at the time of the report writing, served on the multi-disciplinary team as a climate preparedness and resilience specialist. In addition, Misra and the team used the DOD Climate Assessment Tool to develop climate exposure assessments for DOD installations worldwide. The tool enables DOD personnel at all levels of the department – from installation planners to leadership – to understand exposure to climate-related hazards using both historical data and future climate projections, he said.
"The fact that over the last decade DOD has continued to consider the impacts of climate change seriously and taken pro-active steps to incorporate adaptation strategies into its mission is impressive,” Misra said. “With the release of this plan, DOD has laid out specific actions they need to take to mitigate their risk from climate change impacts. It is an honor to have been a part of the development of this plan.”
Read more about the work here.