Anamaria Bukvic

Anamaria Bukvic is a social scientist and human geographer. Her research is focused on coastal resilience, vulnerability, security, population displacement, and relocation. She uses qualitative and quantitative mixed methods to study complex emerging societal issues related to flooding in coastal urban and rural settings. She has 28 peer-reviewed publications and secured over $3.7 million in external funding over the past eight years. Her projects are funded by the Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and the State of Virginia to study the impacts of chronic and episodic coastal flooding on coping capacity, resilience, migration, and social stability in coastal communities. She was a Fellow of the 2019 Early Career Innovators Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and co-organizer of the Rotating Resilience Roundtable semiannual workshops designed to facilitate collaboration among researchers and stakeholders on coastal resilience in Virginia. Anamaria is an associate director of the Center for Coastal Studies at Virginia Tech, serves on the Climigration Network council, and chairs the Work Group on Research, Innovation, and Evaluation. 

Courses Recently Taught:

• Climate Change & Societal Impacts (GEOG 4984/5984)
• Introduction to Coastal Regions (GEOG 2114)
• Introduction to Environmental Security (GEOG 2104)

Recent Grants:

2024-2027 Department of Defense (DoD) – Minerva Research Initiative. Anticipating coastal population mobility: Path to maladaptation or sociopolitical stability. Bukvic, A. (PI), Beling, P. (VT), Ellison, T. (CCS). $1,998,337.

2023-2026 National Science Foundation (NSF) - Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems (DISES). Coupled socio-ecological mobility in the coastal zone. Bukvic, A. (PI), Allen, T. (ODU), Biber, P. (USM). $592,027.

2019-2021 National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Early Career Innovators Program. Changing coastlines, changing mobility: when staying in place is no longer an option. Bukvic, A. (PI). $160,181

2019-2021 National Science Foundation (NSF) - Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment (HDBE) Program. Assessing the impacts of coastal flood-induced relocation on local jurisdictions. Bukvic, A. (PI), Irish, J., Shortridge, J. & Zobel C. (VT). $325,000.

2016-2019. National Science Foundation (NSF) - CRISP Type 1/Collaborative Research. Human-centered computational framework for urban and community design of resilient coastal cities.  Rhode-Barbarigos L. (PI), Zuo, W., Chao, S. (UM) Saad, W., Bukvic, A. (VT). $500,000.

Publications:

Shortridge, J., Bukvic, A., Allen, T., Mitchell, M., & Goldstein, J., (2023). Characterizing climate socio-environmental tipping points in coastal communities: A conceptual framework for research and practice. Earth's Future, 12(7), e2023EF004123. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF004123

Nourali, Z., Shortridge, J., Bukvic, A., Shao, Y., & Irish, J. (2024). Simulation of flood-induced human migration at the municipal-scale: A stochastic agent-based model of relocation response to coastal Flooding. Water, 16(2), 263. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16020263

Crawford, M., Bukvic, A., Rijal, S. & Gohlke J. (2023). The social cascades of exposure to flood induced Na-Tech events on vulnerable populations in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Natural Hazards, 119, 1633–1663. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-023-06148-x

Bukvic, A. & Borate, A. (2023). Identifying vulnerabilities of older residents in Miami-Dade County to episodic and chronic flooding. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 17(e465), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2023.133

Bukvic, A., Mitchell, A., Shao, Y. & Irish, J.L. (2023). Spatiotemporal implications of flooding on relocation risk in rural and urban coastal municipalities. Land Use Policy, 132, 106754. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106754 

Valle-Ramos, A., Alland, A., & Bukvic, A. (2023). Using machine learning to understand relocation drivers of coastal populations in response to flooding. AMS Artificial Intelligence for the Earth Systems, 2(2), 220054. https://doi.org/10.1175/AIES-D-22-0054.1

Bukvic, A. & Barnett, S. (2023). What drives urban coastal residents to consider relocation? Insights from the U.S. East Coast. Journal of Environmental Management, 325, 116429. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116429 

Mitchell, A., Bukvic, A., Shao, Y., Irish, J., & McLaughlin, D. (2023). Toward collaborative adaptation: Assessing impacts of coastal flooding at the watershed scale. Environmental Management, 71(4), 741-754. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-022-01759-9 

Garland, A. Bukvic, A. & Maton, A. (2022). Perceptions of hazards, environmental change, and relocation in the North Slope Borough, Alaska. Climate Risk Management, 100460. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2022.100460 

Bukvic, A., Mandi, K., Finn, D., Mayo, T., Wong-Parodi, G., … & Alland, J. (2022). Advancing interdisciplinary and convergent science for communities: Lessons learned through the NCAR Early-Career Faculty Innovator Program. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 103(11), E2513-E2532. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0265.1

Bukvic, A., Whittemore, A., Gonzales, J., & Wilhelmi, O. (2022). Understanding relocation in flood-prone coastal communities through the lens of place attachment. Journal of Applied Geography, 146, 102758.

Finn, D., Mandi, K., Bukvic, A., Davis, C., Haacker, R., … & T. Mayo (2022). Moving from interdisciplinary to convergent research across geoscience and social sciences: Challenges and strategies. Environmental Research Letters, 17(6), 061002. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac7409 

Allen, T., Behr, J., Bukvic, A., Calder, R.S.D., … & Zinnert, J.C. (2021). Anticipating and adapting to the future impacts of climate change on the health, security and welfare of Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) communities in Southeastern USA. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 9(11),1196. DOI: 10.3390/jmse9111196 

Bukvic, A., Borate, A., Hughes, S. Imburgia, S. Stiles, S., & Weaver R. (2021). Why context and scale matter: Exploring neighborhood level resilience in the City of Hampton, Virginia. Journal of Flood Risk Management 14(2), e12698. DOI: 10.1111/jfr3.12698 

Bukvic, A. & Borate, A. (2021). Acquisition and relocation in coastal communities: assessment of FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program 1989-2016. Environmental Hazards, 20(3), 279-299. DOI: 10.1080/17477891.2020.1804819

Prince, B.C., Juran, L., Venkataramana, S., Bukvic, A., & MacDonald, M.C. (2020). A statistical and spatial analysis of water poverty using a modified Water Poverty Index. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 37(2), 339-356. DOI: 10.1080/07900627.2020.1768829

Bukvic, A., Rohat, G., Apotsos, A., & de Sherbinin, A. (2020). A systematic review of coastal vulnerability mapping. Sustainability, Special Issue: Climate Risk and Vulnerability Mapping, 12(7), 2822. DOI: 10.3390/su12072822

Bukvic, A., Biber, P., Barreto, M., & Roberts, S. (2019). Mobility: A research strategy for a new coastline. Coastal Management, 47(6), 611-620. DOI:10.1080/08920753.2019.1669103

Bukvic, A. (2019). Facilitating stakeholders’ engagement in climate change relocation planning: The Coastal Relocation Leaf. Social Sciences, 8(6): 197. DOI:10.3390/socsci8060197

de Sherbinin, A., Bukvic, A., Rohat, G., Gall, M., … & Zhang, S. (2019). Climate change vulnerability mapping: A systematic review and future prospects. WIRES Climate Change, 10(5), e600.  DOI:10.1002/wcc.600

Bukvic, A. & Harrald, J. (2019). Rural versus urban perspective on coastal flooding: the insights from the U.S. Mid-Atlantic communities. Climate Risk Management, 23, 7-18. DOI: 10.1016/j.crm.2018.10.004

Bukvic, A., Gohlke J., Borate, A., & Suggs, J. (2018). The health and wellbeing risk to older residents residing in flood-prone coastal communities. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Special Issue: Extreme Weather Events and Health, 15(12), 2900. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph15122900

Bukvic, A., Zhu, H. Lavoie, R., & Becker, A. (2018). The role of proximity to waterfront in the relocation decision-making post-Hurricane Sandy. Ocean and Coastal Management, 154, 8-18. DOI: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2018.01.002 

Bukvic, A. (2017). Towards the sustainable climate change population movement: The Relocation Suitability Index. Climate and Development, 10(4), 307-320. DOI: 10.1080/17565529.2017.1291407

Bukvic, A. & Owen, G. (2017). Attitudes towards relocation following Hurricane Sandy: should we stay or should we go? Disasters, 41(1), 101-123. DOI: 10.1111/disa.12186 

Bukvic, A. (2015). Identifying Gaps and Inconsistencies in the Use of Relocation Rhetoric: A Prerequisite for Sound Relocation Policy and Planning. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 20(7), pp. 1203-1209, DOI: 10.1007/s11027-013-9532-5

Bukvic, A., Smith, A., Zhang, A. (2015). Evaluating Drivers of Coastal Relocation in Hurricane Sandy Affected Communities. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 13, 215-228, DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.06.008

Bukvic, A. (2015). Integrated Framework for the Relocation Potential Assessment of Coastal Communities (RPACC): Application to Hurricane-Sandy Affected Areas. Environment, Systems, and Decisions, 35(2), 264-278, DOI 10.1007/s10669-015-9546-5