Water matters Water matters Water matters

More than a century ago, Seattle leaders set out to control and redirect the Duwamish River. They dredged the riverbed and dug out its twists and turns. Wetlands were filled in, the valley was paved over, and a system of hydrology was severed.

What had been a wild, winding river valley with regular flooding became an angular straightaway built for industry. But when UW postdoctoral scholar Maja Jeranko looks out at the Duwamish, she sees the river struggling to return. “The water was always there,” Jeranko says, “and now it’s fighting to come back up.”

The river did return, with devastating effect, in December 2022, when an exceptionally high tide and heavy rainfall flooded the South Park neighborhood, submerging homes and closing local businesses.

The underserved neighborhood faces a significant risk of future floods. To mitigate that risk, the city of Seattle has updated the stormwater drainage and launched a new flood-warning system. But the Duwamish River Community Coalition, a nonprofit focused on river pollution and environmental health, saw an opportunity for something greater. The coalition asked a team of UW researchers to help develop flood-adaptation plans that are community-based, culturally responsive and that enrich the local environment.

“In the community, people don’t think there’s been enough engagement. There’s all this talk about flood mitigation, but all they see are sandbags,” Jeranko says. “So DRCC was like, ‘Look, we really need the people who live in the flood zone to understand the solutions.’ Because we have this long-lasting relationship with them, they see us as someone who’s able to provide a list of solutions, not favor one over the others, and do it in an informative way.”

Boosted by a grant from the UW’s Population Health Initiative, Jeranko and a team representing five UW departments, the Burke Museum and the DRCC are engaging with the community. This fall, the team presented the neighborhood with an expansive list of flood-mitigation options and encouraged city leaders to consider people’s preferences. Early work shows the community would favor nature-based solutions, Jeranko says. Floodable parks, for example, would provide ecological, recreational and public-health benefits, while storing floodwater during storms.

When UW President Ana Mari Cauce launched the Population Health Initiative in 2016, she spoke in ambitious terms. “We have an unprecedented opportunity to help people live longer, healthier, more productive lives—here and around the world,” she said. UW researchers have leapt at that opportunity, forging connections across the University, working with community partners and breaking down traditional barriers to improving public health.

In just eight years, the Initiative has funded nearly 230 innovative, interdisciplinary projects. Many are focused in Washington, where projects have helped improve transportation accessibility in South Seattle, identified soil contaminants in community gardens in the Duwamish Valley and improved how community leaders along the Okanogan River communicate the public-health risks of wildfire smoke. Other projects have reached across the globe, targeting health disparities in Somalia, Peru and Brazil.

“In this relatively short period of time, we’ve demonstrated the power that accrues when faculty and staff across the various areas of our campuses are working together and also exposing students to the cutting-edge work of tackling grand challenges,” Cauce said in her most recent campus address.

The community-based Duwamish Valley project team hopes its model will be replicated by communities across the country facing similar risks from climate change and sea-level rise.

“Even though the UW and a lot of other universities really support and invest in community-engaged work, a lot of times it’s fundamentally hard to make that research happen,” Jeranko says. “But the Population Health Initiative grant was about supporting all those things.”