Hurricane Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation – A Minor Field Study in Roseau, Dominica

Abstract: Dominica, the hurricane-prone island nation, experienced severe destruction in September 2017 from a category 5 hurricane named Maria. Based on research and a minor field study to the island in the Lesser Antilles, a climate change adaptive and hurricane resilient design for a specific site in the capital Roseau is proposed in this master thesis project in Sustainable Urban Design. The project aims to mitigate storm related hazards, especially the risk of flooding, using various solutions coupled with strategies for social development. The project differentiates between flooding strategies, intended to tackle issues of flooding on different scales, and site-specific strategies for safe housing, sustainable economic prosperity, emergency and tourism logistics, as well as multifunctional urban spaces. The flooding strategies range from landscape scale solutions to building scale mitigations. The site-specific urban design strategies consists of multifunctional design supporting tourism during normal circumstances and emergency logistics in times of distress, a physical environment that encourages pedestrian use, beach-front development opportunities that offer incentives for social development and active frontages and spaces for local commercial actors.