R.I.C.E. – Aiding Coordinated Resilience Strategies for the South Atlantic Bight

The South Carolina Aquarium's Resilience Initiative for Coastal Education (R.I.C.E.) is a scalable model for community resilience outreach and action that facilitates engagement across socioeconomic strata and aids the collaborative development of coordinated coastal resilience strategies along the South Atlantic Bight. Projected biosphere climate perturbations pose a significant threat to human health and safety, commerce, culture, and stability of ecosystem services on a local level, particularly in the South Carolina Lowcountry. At notable risk are socially vulnerable communities, the cultural heritage of the Gullah Geechee people, and the reproductive success of threatened loggerhead sea turtles reliant on South Carolina's Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge for nesting purposes. The R.I.C.E. endeavor's solution-oriented collaborative approach leverages innovative technologies and novel methods to engage citizens, inclusive of environmental justice principles, in locally-appropriate resilience-building actions. Advanced technological tools, including the SeaRise Beta web application with integrated citizen science functionality, generate community literacy on the topic of sea level rise and efficiently convert knowledge to action to help communities actualize on-the-ground mitigation strategies in partnership with municipal leaders, policy makers, conservation agencies, and businesses. The initial success of the R.I.C.E. model bolsters its ability to serve as a national prototype for effective education and engagement of diverse communities on the topic of coastal resilience.