The Environmental Institute at the University of Virginia awarded seven new Climate Collaborative projects through a Grand Challenges initiative designed to bring research and real-world impact together in the face of global climate challenges. From the world’s densest concentration of data centers in Loudoun County, Virginia, to flood-prone neighborhoods in Puerto Rico and forest-dependent communities in southern Africa, UVA researchers are partnering directly with local leaders and organizations to co-create solutions that strengthen resilience and sustainability. Each project aims to turn knowledge into action for a more sustainable future.

“These projects represent a fundamental goal of the Environmental Institute: to use the power of research to make a difference in people’s lives,” said Karen McGlathery, director of the UVA Environmental Institute. “Each project brings together researchers, communities, and decision-makers to co-create solutions that are grounded in data and, importantly, also in lived experience. These teams connect research with action.”

The seven new Climate Collaborative projects are:

1. Living With Data Centers: Co-Producing A Framework For Climate, Community, And Infrastructure Resilience In Loudoun County, Virginia
   $500,000
   Project funding will start on 12/1/2025 and end on 11/30/2028 

Project Location: Loudon County, Virginia

UVA Partners: Lauren Bridges (Media Studies), Tanya Denckla Cobb (Institute for Engagement and Negotiation), Sergio Guillen Grillo (Engineering and Society), Negin Alemazkoor (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Lisa Colosi Peterson (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Ali Fard (Architecture), Joao Pedro Ferreira (Weldon Cooper Center), Ian Baxter (Institute for Engagement and Negotiation)

Local Partners: Loudoun County Vice Chair and Ashburn District Supervisor, Mike Turner; Loudoun County Administrator, Tim Hemstreet, and the Piedmont Environmental Council. 

Project Summary: Loudoun County, Virginia, the world’s densest concentration of data centers, offers a critical case study for examining how the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure intersects with climate resilience. As artificial intelligence (AI) drives unprecedented demand for computational power and digital infrastructure, data centers are consuming ever greater amounts of electricity and water, placing high demands on regional grids, extending fossil-fuel generation, and transforming land usage of Northern Virginia. These pressures are amplified by climate change as rising temperatures, drought risk, and severe weather events compound vulnerabilities in energy and water systems. 

This project will examine how data center expansion impacts climate resilience, energy systems, water resources, and community well-being. By integrating community perspectives with technical analyses of grid reliability, life cycle cumulative impacts, spatial imprints, and economic tradeoffs, this project will co-produce, with decision-makers and county stakeholders, a first-of-its-kind localized study of the cumulative demands of data center development. 

2. Promoting Climate Resilient Agriculture Through Ecosystem Management In Virginia
   $500,000
   Project funding will start on 12/1/2025, and end on 11/30/2028 

Project Location: Charlottesville, Virginia

UVA Faculty Partners: Meghan Blumstein (Environmental Science and Architecture), Fred Cheng (Environmental Sciences), Michael Luegering (Architecture)

Local Partners: Morven Sustainability Labs, Virginia Department of Forestry, Piedmont Environmental Council, the Virginia Working Landscapes group, the James River Association, the American Forest Foundation, UpStream Carbon, Department of Conservation Resources in Virginia

Project Summary: Virginia’s rural residents and economy are particularly vulnerable to a changing climate with different weather patterns, degrading natural resources, and biodiversity loss. With over 90% of the state comprising agricultural (~30%) and forested (~60%) lands, Virginia's communities and ecosystems are experiencing changing precipitation patterns, increased storm intensity, and shifting growing seasons. A particular and unique challenge in Virginia is the fragmented nature of land ownership: the average farm size is 187 acres (half that of a state like Iowa), over 85% of farms are family-owned, and 75% of private forest lands exist in small, family-owned parcels. Thus, while climate is intensifying globally, adaptation in Virginia must occur at small scales and in coordination with thousands of individual actors with different constraints and resources.   

This project aims to leverage an unparalleled opportunity at a mixed agricultural site to identify potential “win-win” scenarios, where diverse needs can be met through innovative land management. With practitioner partners, it will co-create local-scale, data-backed, and implementable solutions that can help Virginia landowners maintain their livelihoods in an uncertain climate future. The researchers will experiment with land use changes (e.g., regenerative agriculture, burning, riparian restoration) and measure how these changes enhance or degrade ecosystem services (e.g., clean water, biodiversity, etc.).

3. Unveiling Health Risks From Indoor Exposures Following Climate-Enhanced Flooding In Puerto Rico
   $500,000
   Project funding will start on 12/1/2025 and end on 11/30/2027

Project Location: Puerto Rico

UVA Faculty Partners: Somayeh Asadi (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Negin Alemazkoor (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Arsalan Heydarian (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Bryan Berger (Chemical Engineering), Majid Shafiee-Jood (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Michael Timko (Biology), Rajesh Balkrishnan (Public Health Sciences)

Local Partners: ENLACE, Lytos Technologies , G8, Fideicomiso de la Tierra

Project Summary: Flood-prone homes are the frontline of climate change, yet their hidden indoor exposures remain invisible, primarily to science and policy. People spend nearly 90% of their lives indoors, yet adaptation research rarely considers the air we breathe or the water we drink inside our homes, particularly in disaster-prone, resource-limited communities. In Puerto Rico’s Caño Martín Peña (CMP) district (an urban flood corridor home to 11,000 residents), chronic humidity, recurrent flooding, and power outages create ideal conditions for the persistence of harmful pollutants that threaten health long after floodwaters recede. 

To address these risks, this project focuses on four classes of indoor contaminants, including mold, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), microplastics, and heavy metals, that are poorly regulated in residential settings and collectively represent an urgent but understudied dimension of environmental health. While PFAS and microplastics have been studied in outdoor waters and soils, a systematic investigation of these pollutants indoors, particularly in conjunction with mold and heavy metals, remains poorly characterized. Moreover, little is known about how extreme events such as flooding mobilize and amplify these contaminants indoors, leaving a critical gap in understanding their disaster-related impacts on human exposure. This project incorporates in-home trials of low-cost interventions to evaluate how filtration and bio-based technologies can directly reduce exposures. 

4. A Social-Ecological Approach For Just Climate, Biodiversity, And Well-Being Outcomes In The Miombo Woodlands Of Africa
   $500,000
   Project funding will start on 12/1/2025 and end on 11/30/2028

Project Location: Miombo Woodlands, Africa

UVA Faculty Partners: Charity Nyelele (Environmental Science), Meghan Blumstein (Environmental Science and Architecture)

Academic Partners: Eduardo Mondlane University - Mozambique, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center

Local Partners: Basilwizi Trust

Project Summary: Tropical dry forests, such as the Miombo woodlands (the largest dryland forest), play a pivotal role in rural livelihoods, particularly for the forest-dependent communities. Spanning more than 1 million km across seven southern African countries, Miombo woodlands harbor diverse and multifunctional landscapes and are inextricably linked to the lives of more than 300 million people. The Miombo also plays a major role in regulating regional and global climate dynamics. Despite the profound socio-ecological significance of the Miombo, the community faces complex transitions due to, among other things, a rapidly changing climate. These changes not only threaten the ecological integrity of the woodlands but have profound impacts on food security, livelihoods, and overall community well-being. 

Researchers from the U.S. and Mozambique will work collaboratively with a network of local partners in two countries (Mozambique and Zimbabwe) to co-design solutions to address climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and human well-being. The project will empower marginalized communities in the Miombo to actively participate in the management and sustainable use of their natural resources, which will build resilience to environmental and climate transitions. 

5. Co-Producing Climate-Resilient Solutions To Septic System Failures On The Eastern Shore Of Virginia
   $500,000
   Project funding will start on 12/1/2025 and end on 11/30/2028

Project Location: Eastern Shore of Virginia

UVA Faculty Partners: Majid Shafiee-Jood (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Barbara Brown Wilson (Architecture), Teresa Culver (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Negin Alemazkoor (Civil and Environmental Engineering)

Academic Partners: UVA Coastal Research Center, Eastern Shore Community College, Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Local Partners: Accomack–Northampton Planning District Commission (A–NPDC), Eastern Shore Health District (Virginia Department of Health), Accomack County’s Department of Environmental Programs, Northampton County’s Planning, Permitting, and Enforcement Department

Project Summary: Across much of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States, decentralized septic systems are reaching a breaking point in large part due to climate stressors. In rural and coastal communities, decentralized septic systems that were once considered a reliable and affordable form of household wastewater management are increasingly failing under the combined pressures of age, saturated soils from more intense rainfall and storm flooding, and the impacts of sea-level rise on groundwater levels. Rising groundwater levels reduce the vertical separation needed for proper septic system functioning, and the more intense rainfall and storm-driven flooding saturates drain fields and increases the frequency of system overloads. Sea-level rise also compounds these pressures by pushing salt water into shallow groundwater aquifers, further undermining thousands of systems that were once marginally viable. Without intervention, these stressors will continue to expand the impact of septic failures, turning localized breakdowns into chronic regional problems.

Historically underserved communities rely disproportionately on private wells and septic systems, yet they are least able to absorb the financial burden of repairs or conversions and are frequently excluded from infrastructure planning processes that shape investment decisions. Governance of septic systems is fragmented, with state health departments maintaining only partial records, local agencies managing permits, and no single entity accountable for coordinated adaptation. Left unchecked, climate-driven stressors will magnify these vulnerabilities, transforming what has long been treated as a private household problem into a systemic resilience challenge for entire regions. This project seeks to address this challenge through more than technical fixes. These researchers will develop an integrated approach that links hydrologic science, engineering, public health, social science, and community engagement.

6. Building Climate-Optimized Affordable Neighborhoods In Northern Virginia
   $500,000
   Project funding will start on 12/1/2025 and end on 11/30/2027

Project Location: Virginia

UVA Faculty Partners: Jeana Ripple (Architecture), Andrew Hayashi (Law), Laura Buckley (Architecture), Andres Clarens (Civil and Environmental Engineering)

Academic Partners: University of California Law- San Francisco

Local Partners: True Ground 

Project Summary: Buildings generate nearly 40% of global carbon pollution through embodied carbon from materials and construction and operational carbon from ongoing energy use. Simultaneously, climate change threatens building durability and habitability through extreme weather events, creating an urgent need for climate-resilient construction. These climate-related challenges are emerging against a major housing shortage in the United States (estimated to be on the order of 3-5 million units). Ensuring the future of building is climate-aligned is critical to both limit warming and prepare for a warmer planet. But current approaches treat housing supply, carbon pollution reduction, and climate resilience as competing priorities, leading to suboptimal outcomes for all three objectives.

This project seeks to understand how regulation and financing affect what is built (building form and material choices) and the integrated impacts on embodied carbon, operational energy consumption, climate resilience, and affordable housing supply.

7. Using AI To Improve Agricultural Extension For Climate Resilience In Lesotho
   $185,000
   Project funding will start on 12/1/2025 and end on 11/30/2027

Project Location: Lesotho, South Africa

UVA Faculty Partners: Molly Lipscomb (Economics and Public Policy), Terence Johnson (Economics and Data Sciences) 

Academic Partners University of Lesotho -- Department of Crop Science

Local Partners: 4D Climate Solutions 

Project Summary: Lesotho’s landscapes have suffered significant degradation due to unsustainable land use, poor water resource management, and increasing vulnerability to climate change. This has led to soil erosion, reduced agricultural productivity, and loss of ecosystem services.  Smallholder farmers in the region have limited resources to adapt to environmental changes, yet 70% of the Lesotho people depend on agriculture for both their food and income.  Food security is a persistent and important problem, particularly during times of water stress, making it particularly vulnerable to fluctuations in the climate. 

Farmers have options to shift their practices in response to these challenges amplified by a changing climate, but many lack access to the information needed to evaluate which adaptation strategies are most feasible and profitable. This project will harness AI to strengthen extension services by delivering precise, localized, and practical guidance for farmers. By improving access to tailored information, the project aims to help smallholder farmers make informed decisions and adopt effective climate-adaptation practices. 

All together, these seven new Climate Collaborative projects highlight the Environmental Institute’s commitment to advancing cutting-edge research that deepens an understanding of a changing planet. By fostering collaboration across disciplines and regions, and working with partners on the ground, the Institute supports projects that co-develop solutions to complex environmental challenges.