UNCW Climate Resilience Lab
Dr. Hovis' Lab at University of North Carolina Wilmington
Learn more about the research we're doing at UNCW
and meet the team.
North Carolina Agrivoltaics
The production and burning of fossil fuels negatively impacts global health, for both ecosystems and people. Per Harvard University, more than 8 million people died in 2018 from fossil fuel pollution, which means that air pollution from burning fossil fuels was responsible for about 1 in 5 deaths worldwide.
Photovoltaics—or solar energy—is a renewable energy able to replace dirty energy. Photovoltaics can be implemented in a variety of ways, one of those being agrivoltaics.
Agrivoltaics creates a relationship between agriculture and photovoltaics. Solar panels are built on expansive farmlands, providing benefits to crops and grazers that can utilize the land beneath the panels. Our research is exploring whether agrivoltaics is beneficial to agricultural yields and solar production, and if farmers and solar developers are open to adopting new technologies. ​
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Nature-Based Solutions
for Urban Flood Mitigation
The increased frequency of extreme weather events like hurricanes has caused urban flooding to become more prominent. These intense rainfall events have exposed aging and inadequate infrastructure meant to combat flooding, only to strain already stressed drainage systems and create pockets of flooding in vulnerable and ill-equipped neighborhoods.
Many communities lack the resources to address urban flooding, largely in low-income areas where mitigation efforts are slow-coming. Per the United States Environmental Protection Agency, urban flooding is becoming more frequent in coastal cities, especially along the United States coastline where cities like Wilmington, North Carolina reside.
These communities are the most impacted by recurrent urban flooding, which can result in the deterioration of infrastructure. This poses the question of what green infrastructure practices are most promising for coastal urban communities like Wilmington, North Carolina, given faltering gray infrastructure.
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