17 Nov 2016

Book Release: Prospects for Resilience

Dr. Franco Montalto, Principal Engineer here at eDesign Dynamics, co-authored a chapter

in the new book Prospects for Resilience: Insights from New York City's Jamaica Bay.

Book Release: Prospects for Resilience. A chapter was co-authored by Dr. Franco Monsalto, eDesign Dynamics Principal EngineerWe are pleased to announce that Prospects for Resilience: Insights from New York City’s Jamaica Bay (9781610917339/$40.00) from Island Press is finally available! Drawing on lessons from New York City’s Jamaica Bay, the book takes a comprehensive look at efforts to create resilient cities that work with—not against—nature.

Informed by insights of more than fifty scholars and practitioners, the book establishes a broad framework for understanding resilience practice in cities and sets out a process for grappling with the many meanings of resilience. Prospects for Resilience is not only for those working in Jamaica Bay or other urban watersheds, but for all researchers, urban planners, students, and others who need to create more resilient cities.

If you’d like to purchase a copy from Island Press, which ships worldwide, use the code 4JAMAICA, which is good for a 20% discount. You can also order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and your local independent bookseller.

As supporters of the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, we hope you will consider sharing the book with your own networks to help get the word out. You can help in a few ways:

  • Forward this message to your own contacts or share the news on your social media networks. Feel free to include the discount code, 4JAMAICA.
  • If you’d like to review it for a publication or website, you can request a review copy from press@islandpress.org.
  • If you’d like to use it in a class, you can request an exam copy at www.islandpress.org/request-exam-copy.
  • Encourage your organization to ask info@islandpress.org for details about a discounted bulk purchase.
  • Review the book on Amazon, Goodreads, or another review site.

Given the realities of climate change and sea-level rise, coastal cities around the world are struggling with questions of resilience. 

Resilience, at its core, is about desirable states of the urban social-ecological system and understanding how to sustain those states in an uncertain and tumultuous future. How do physical conditions, ecological processes, social objectives, human politics, and history shape the prospects for resilience?  Most books set out “the answer.”  This book sets out a process of grappling with holistic resilience from multiple perspectives, drawing on the insights and experiences of more than fifty scholars and practitioners working together to make Jamaica Bay in New York City an example for the world.

Prospects for Resilience establishes a framework for understanding resilience practice in urban watersheds. Using Jamaica Bay—the largest contiguous natural area in New York, home to millions of New Yorkers, and a hub of global air travel with John F. Kennedy International Airport—the authors demonstrate how various components of social-ecological systems interact, ranging from climatic factors to plant populations to human demographics. They also highlight essential tools for creating resilient watersheds, including monitoring and identifying system indicators; computer modeling; green infrastructure; and decision science methods. Finally, they look at the role and importance of a “boundary organization” like the new Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay in coordinating and facilitating resilience work, and consider significant research questions and prospects for the future of urban watersheds.

Prospects for Resilience sets forth an essential foundation of information and advice for researchers, urban planners, students and others who need to create more resilient cities that work with, not against, nature.