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Streams of Solidarity: Water Security and Flood Preparedness

Streams of Solidarity examines how community-based and watershed organizations in West Virginia can collaborate with emergency responders, mutual-aid networks, and faith-based groups to confront compounding climate and environmental hazards. Amid recurring floods, water-quality threats, and aging infrastructure—layered atop extractive legacies—local initiatives demonstrate significant capacity yet remain fragmented by governance silos, uneven data, and volatile funding.

  • Which coordination arrangements allow heterogeneous actors to plan and respond together at watershed and county scales?

  • How do rules, technologies, and funding mechanisms shape flood and water-toxicity governance—and with what equity implications?

  • What preparedness practices currently exist, and how do they enable or hinder meaningful participation?

  • How are risks perceived across communities and agencies, and how do these perceptions align with measured hazards?

  • What data, information platforms, and assessment tools best support shared situational awareness and joint decision-making?

By centering community voice and watershed-scale action, the project generates actionable evidence and tools to move West Virginia from reactive recovery toward equitable, long-horizon resilience.