Project-Based Learning to Assess Flood Risk and Mitigation Strategies for Coastal Communities: A Case Study.

Coastal communities are exposed to multiple natural hazards including hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, storm surges, and nuisance and riverine flash floods. To mitigate these hazards, it is important to educate and train our students to the phenomenology and design resilient infrastructure that can withstand the impact of extreme natural events. This paper presents the outcome of an experiential learning course that was adapted and offered as part of a project funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The instructional approach that was used in the course was Project Based Learning (PBL) using case studies as a teaching and learning tool. This approach allowed students to learn through their own experience while encountering a real-life infrastructure problem that needs to be addressed and solved. The result of their work was reported as a case study. The course main goal is to provide students with a broader perspective of natural hazards that may be encountered during their professional practice as engineers and how they, as professionals, can mitigate damage to infrastructure due to natural extreme flooding events that cause the subsequent community disasters by designing and building resilient and sustainable infrastructure. Students learned the nature of the flooding phenomena and how to manage nuisance, riverine, and coastal floods. Through knowledge gained by participating in literature search, lectures, and discussions, students were able to document and define the needs, scope, and characteristics of the problem to be solved. They also learned the considerations of the resilience cycle to appropriately define, design and recommend resilient alternative solutions,. The locations that were selected for the semester-long project were various coastal communities in Puerto Rico. Due to its location at coastal communities close to the ocean, and in a seismic area (with alluvial sandy soils and high-water table level), the communities are exposed to multiple natural hazards. Students were exposed to grey, green and hybrid alternative structural and nonstructural solutions that can be applied through the engineering design process. At the end of the semester the students provided a technical report, an oral presentation of their work, and reflected on the lessons learned which were replicable and transferrable to other similar sites at risk in the Island and beyond. Students indicated that they were able to appreciate and understand the risk, exposure, and vulnerability of the natural and built infrastructure, and the importance of always taking into consideration the significance of the social impact.