Summary
The occurrence and severity of natural disasters in the Dominican Republic and across the Caribbean is increasing as a result of climate change, and low-income urban neighborhoods in particular are suffering as a result.
At the same time, the current physical infrastructure that provides basic services, such as power, water and internet to urban residents of the Dominican Republic is severely strained.
This project aims to strengthen the Dominican Republic’s ability to confront natural disasters.
In the wake of natural disasters, local resilience centers can provide life-sustaining services like electricity and water, as they are less prone to large-scale outages than centralized facilities.
The project is developing a blueprint for a new resilience center in Cristo Rey, a neighborhood of Santo Domingo. It will assess current gaps and opportunities with the digital, physical, social and policy infrastructure, and propose recommendations for how to transform an existing structure in the community into a multifunctional resilience center.
The project will provide a rubric for other communities in the Dominican Republic and around the Caribbean in need of innovative approaches to addressing the realities of climate change.
In Partnership With:
Statistics
- $345 millionestimated annual average loss caused by hurricanes in the Dominican Republic
Team
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Jesus D’Alessandro
Ayuntamiento del Distrito NacionalProject LeadRead Full Bio arrow_right_altDr. Jesus D’Alessandro is a project lead, representing the Ayuntamiento del Distrito Nacional. He is currently the technical secretary of the Ayuntamiento del Distrito Nacional (ADN)...
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Kalil Erazo
Instituto Tecnológico de Santo DomingoProject LeadRead Full Bio arrow_right_altDr. Kalil Erazo is a project lead, representing the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC). Dr. Erazo is a research professor at the INTEC (Dominican Republic) and an adjunct...
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Upmanu Lall
Columbia UniversityProject TeamRead Full Bio arrow_right_altDr. Lall is the Director of the Columbia Water Center and the Alan and Carol Silberstein Professor of Engineering, and the Chair of the Dept. of Earth & Environmental Engineering at...
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Rafael A. Lantigua
Columbia UniversityProject TeamRead Full Bio arrow_right_altDr. Rafael Lantigua received his MD degree from the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo in 1972. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Lincoln Hospital, where he also served...
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Vanessa Espaillat Lovett
Project TeamRead Full Bio arrow_right_altVanessa Espaillat Lovett is responsible for the management of the project. Espaillat Lovett is an architect and urbanist trained at Columbia University, the Architectural Association and...
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Richard Plunz
Columbia UniversityProject LeadRead Full Bio arrow_right_altProf. Richard Plunz is a professor of Architecture at Columbia University and founder of the Earth Institute Urban Design Lab. In the past he served as Chair of the Division of Architecture...
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Esteban Gonzales Reyes
Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE)Project LeadRead Full Bio arrow_right_altProf. Esteban Gonzales Reyes serves on the faculty of the School of Architecture at Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) and is the founder of Ground Arquietectura, an architecture and urban...
Go Deeper
Report: Building Climate Resilient Communities in the Dominican Republic: A blueprint for a community Resilience Center in Santo Domingo