Dr Jessica Eisma
Dr

Jessica Eisma

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Background

Jessica Eisma is an expert in community-engaged research in the context of sustainable urban water management. Her vision is to spark a shift toward hydrology-informed urban design spanning the lot to city scale through grounded, yet innovative research on nature-based solutions for managing urban flooding and on urban modification of rainfall. She seeks to uncover how urban development policy and practice contribute to the occurrence of flooding and to stimulate international dialogue on effective urban water management with nature-based solutions. She is committed to developing the information and resources necessary for urban planners and engineers to pursue practice and policy changes that will address significant infrastructural planning and design gaps related to infrastructure for urban water management. Her work will advance scientific evidence for the feedback between urban areas, the hydrosphere, and society and transform the way we approach urban development. In the face of climate change and burgeoning urban populations, such understanding is increasingly critical for managing the human and property costs associated with urban flooding.

Availability

Dr Jessica Eisma is:
Available for supervision

Fields of research

Adverse weather events Applied computing Atmospheric sciences Civil engineering Climate change impacts and adaptation Curriculum and pedagogy Earth Sciences Education Engineering Environmental Sciences Environmental engineering Environmentally sustainable engineering Human impacts of climate change and human adaptation Hydrology Information and Computing Sciences Machine learning Mathematical Sciences Natural hazards Physical geography and environmental geoscience Science, technology and engineering curriculum and pedagogy Spatial data and applications Spatial statistics Statistics Surface water hydrology Urban hydrology Water resources engineering

Qualifications

  • Bachelor of Civil Engineering, Michigan State University
  • Masters (Research) of Civil Engineering, Purdue University
  • Graduate Certificate of Engineering - Higher Engineering Trade, Purdue University
  • Doctor of Philosophy of Civil Engineering, Purdue University

Research interests

  • Urban nature-based solutions

    I develop locally responsive, novel urban nature-based solutions in flood and climate-vulnerable communities, focusing on developing evidence for context-specific implementation of urban nature-based solutions by examining physiographic and social factors influencing performance and uptake in addition to local governance and policy challenges. This work contributes to new evidence for the implementation of nature-based solutions to increase flood and climate resilience and has the potential to influence national and international development policy.

  • Urban modification of rainfall and temperature

    Urban areas are warmer than rural areas, and urban areas modify rainfall, resulting in urban heat and rainfall patterns with distinct hotspots. However, current approaches overlook how urban structure interacts with local land-atmosphere feedback to intensify these literal and figurative hotspots. I develop novel frameworks for climate-resilient urban design that incorporate nature-based solutions and are aligned to the unique physiographic constraints of diverse regions. Major outcomes of this work include improved quantification of local scale flood vulnerability and more effective practical guidelines for urban planning and design.

Availability

Dr Jessica Eisma is:
Available for supervision

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Enquiries

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