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Anamaria Bukvic

Assistant Professor
Anamaria Bukvic
207 Wallace Hall

Expertise:

  • Coastal hazards, adaptation, and resilience
  • Population displacement and relocation
  • Impacts of natural hazards and disasters on older adults
  • Flood risk management, vulnerability assessment, and scenario planning

Dr. Bukvic’s research is focused on coastal resilience, vulnerability, security, population displacement, and mobility. She is further interested in whether relocation can serve as a viable adaptation strategy to sea level rise in coastal communities and what opportunities could emerge from this process. She uses mixed-methods to study complex emerging issues in coastal urban and rural settings related to flooding, such as geospatial analysis, surveys, and interviews. Her early projects evaluate the use of relocation rhetoric in climate change adaptation documents and introduce new decision-support tools to inform relocation planning (e.g., the Coastal Relocation Leaf, the Relocation Suitability Index (RSI), and the Relocation Potential Assessment for Coastal Communities). More recently, Dr. Bukvic conducted two post-hurricane Sandy household surveys on willingness to consider relocation in disaster-affected communities and interviews with stakeholders in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and on the Eastern Shore in Maryland on barriers and opportunities for adaptation. Her current projects are focused on older population living in flood-prone coastal areas, coastal vulnerability mapping, and impacts of flood-induced relocation on local jurisdictions and their resilience.

Dr. Bukvic’s current projects are funded by the National Science Foundation and the State of Virginia to study impacts of chronic and episodic coastal flooding on coping capacity, resilience, and vulnerability in coastal communities. She is also a Fellow of the NSF-funded Early Career Innovators Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and serves as a co-lead of the Coastal@VT interdisciplinary research initiative at Virginia Tech.  

Affiliation:

  • Global Change Center
  • Center for Gerontology
  • Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability
  • Climigration Network

Courses Recently Taught:

  • Climate Change & Societal Impacts (GEOG 4984/5984)
  • Global Issues in Natural Resources (NR5114)
  • Environmental Policy & Planning (UAP 3354)
  • Environmental Policy Seminar (UAP 4364)
  • Pollution Control Policy & Planning (UAP 4384/5064)

Recent Publications:

de Sherbinin, A., Bukvic, A., Rohat, G., Gall, M., McCusker, B., Preston, B., Apotsos, A., Fish, C., Kienberger, S., Muhonda, P., Wilhelmi, O., Macharia, D., Shubert, W., Sliuzas, R., Tomaszewski, B., & 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. (2019). Facilitating stakeholders’ engagement in climate change relocation planning: the Coastal Relocation Leaf. Social Sciences 8(6): 197. DOI: 10.3390/socsci8060197

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, pp.7-18. DOI: 10.1016/j.crm.2018.10.004

Bukvic, A., Gohlke J., 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 edition on 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, pp. 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. (2016). Attitudes towards relocation following Hurricane Sandy: should we stay or should we go? Disasters 41:1. 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, pp. 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): pp. 264-278. DOI 10.1007/s10669-015-9546-5

Recent Grants:

National Science Foundation

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

2016-2019. 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. (University of Miami) Saad, W., Bukvic, A. (Virginia Tech). $500,000.