The Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy

The Focus: Water Resources

The 2025 climate solutions hackathon challenged undergraduate and graduate students from any discipline to team-up and develop proposals in a slide deck within 24 hours.  Teams worked from Friday Jan. 31st until Saturday morning, Feb 1st.  The teams of three to five had a day to propose a solution via a slide deck and short presentation promptly due the next morning. The challenge was to propose an innovative, data-driven solution in one of five categories:

1. Municipal Water Supply
2. Inland and Coastal Flooding
3. Agriculture
4. Drought
5. Water and Energy Infrastructure

The Challenge Prompt

The 2025 hackathon focused on addressing the multi-faceted, highly critical and challenging topic of Water Resources. Here you will find a description of what students needed to accomplish in 24 hours.  We identified five focus areas, described below, that are particularly important and have potential for innovative data-driven solutions. Teams could define projects in any of these areas, or at the intersection of one or more areas.

Media

@TheU: Students win thousands at U’s Wildfire Hackathon 

(March 6, 2024)

The Focus: Wildfire

On January 26 and 27, 2024, the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy held its second annual Climate Solutions Hackathon, with wildland fire as this year’s theme. The challenge posed to U students of any major was to propose an innovative, data-driven solution in one of five categories: 1) prediction and forecasting; 2) risk mitigation; 3) alert systems and evacuations, 4) community resiliency and rehabilitation, or 5) health hazards.

The hackathon organizers encouraged undergraduate and graduate students to form teams and submit a proposal in a slide deck within 24 hours. During the in-person portion of the event, U faculty from various departments along with local representatives from the US Forest Service engaged the different student teams with feedback and guidance.

The Challenge Prompt

The 2024 hackathon was focused on addressing the multi-faceted, highly critical and challenging topic of wildland fires. Below you will find the description of the challenge presented to hackathon participants to accomplish over 24 hours. The five focus areas listed are particularly important and have potential for innovative data-driven solutions. Teams could define projects in any of these areas, or at the intersection of one or more areas. READ THE PROMPT HERE.

Media

@TheU: Students win thousands at U’s Wildfire Hackathon 

(March 6, 2024)

The Focus: Urban Heat

Cities are already warmer than surrounding areas, and climate change is increasing not only average urban temperatures but also the frequency and intensity of heat waves and formation of ozone. Individuals living and working within urban areas can suffer from heat stress and other heat related illnesses and will face increased respiratory symptoms and disease. Buildings within heat islands require more air conditioning and thus use more energy, increasing emissions of greenhouse gases as well as conventional pollutants.

Communities can respond to immediate health problems through emergency response plans and outreach to vulnerable neighborhoods, opening cooling centers, and providing other services. However, long-term changes in the natural and built environments are needed to keep residents, buildings, and communities cool and save energy and healthcare costs. States and local governments face challenges, however, in determining what to do given tight budgets, the complexity of options, the need to coordinate across agencies and jurisdictions, and more.

Read more about the 2023 Hackathon Challenge
@TheU: "Climate Hackathon yields ideas for managing urban heat"

The Winning 2023 Submissions

# 1 Submission: Green Campus Solutions

# 2 Submission: USmart Solutions

# 3 Submission: Hacking Urban Heat

Urban Heat Research Resources: 

• Solutions to urban heat differ between tropical and drier climes, Princeton
• Urban Heat Master Class
• Mapping urban heat islands by air temperature
• As Rising Heat Bakes U.S. Cities, The Poor Often Feel It Most
• Heat and Health in American Cities
• Using Green Roofs to Reduce Heat Islands
• Using Cool Roofs to Reduce Heat Islands
• Berkeley Labs Roof Albedo Map
• The cruel irony of air conditioning