Mid-Atlantic Climate Adaptation Partnership (MARISA)

Collaborating with Mid-Atlantic communities to enhance their resilience to a changing climate through improved data, place-based decision support, and public engagement. The MARISA team was established in 2016 through a five-year grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In 2021, MARISA received a second five-year grant to continue and expand our work. MARISA supports integrated, flexible processes for building adaptive capacity to climate variability and change in diverse Mid-Atlantic regional and subregional settings. MARISA is led by the non-profit RAND in partnership with researchers at Penn State University, Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at William and Mary, Morgan State University, and Carnegie Mellon University. MARISA’s broad regional support for climate-adaptation and resilience activities, including the Seasonal Climate Impacts Summary and climate-informed intensity-duration-frequency curves (graphical representations of rainfall probability) for the region, is complemented by research and outreach in three locations: Baltimore, Maryland; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Virginia’s rural coastal communities.