About

Professor Anamaria Bukvic is associated with the Center for Geospatial Information Technology (CGIT) at Virginia Tech, which collaborates across research, education, and outreach with a transdisciplinary approach, addressing complex problems with geospatial science. Her work involves applying geospatial science to improve quality of life, environment, and community through smart decision making. The center utilizes extensive knowledge in Geographic Information Systems to develop powerful geospatial tools with user-friendly interfaces, transforming spatial data into secure, intuitive decision-making tools that empower agencies, researchers, and communities across the Commonwealth. Her research focuses on creating decision support systems for transportation, environment, and security, utilizing innovative mapping, data visualization, secure GIS, automation tools, AI, and analytics for predictive modeling. Key contributions include redesigning the DMV Geocoding Tool, developing the Virginia State Police Crash Analysis Platform, and creating dashboards for smarter policy and community development, all aimed at advancing data-driven decision-making for a more informed, resilient, and secure future.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Geography
• Environmental planning
• Psychology
• Environmental resource management
• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Data science
• Geology
• Engineering ethics
• Earth science
• Cartography
• Public relations
• Business
• Socioeconomics
• Engineering
• Demography

Selected publications

• Vertical Land Motion and Coastal Cities: Bridging Global Science and Policy for Resilient Communities

  Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences · 2026-01-30

  article

  Vertical land motion (VLM) is an underrecognized hazard in susceptible coastal cities, especially those experiencing rapid urbanization. Human-induced VLM often causes elevation loss (subsidence) at rates that exceed, sometimes by an order of magnitude or more, those of climate-driven sea-level rise. Local land subsidence (LLS) also damages infrastructure, disrupts drainage, and alters flood dynamics, yet its broader impacts remain poorly quantified and systematically assessed. This review synthesizes the scientific, technical, and policy dimensions of VLM, with particular focus on LLS, highlighting how natural processes and human activities interact to amplify coastal hazards. We examine the geophysical drivers of VLM, advances in monitoring and modeling, and their integration into hazard assessment frameworks. We consider socioeconomic and infrastructural vulnerabilities of city residents, especially where limited observational capacity and governance gaps intensify risk. VLM acts as both a physical amplifier and a socio-institutional blind spot within coastal adaptation planning, requiring real-time data integration, scenario testing, and inclusive policy development. Finally, we identify key research frontiers—including subsidence mitigation strategies, dynamic VLM projections, and equitable, high-resolution risk assessment—to support more resilient, adaptive, and just coastal futures. ▪ Tectonics, sediment compaction, groundwater extraction, and urban loading combine to produce complex, nonlinear patterns of vertical land motion that shape local hazard dynamics. ▪ Local land subsidence, often exceeding the rate of global sea-level rise, is the dominant and least understood driver of coastal flooding and infrastructure risk in many urban regions worldwide. ▪ Subsidence disproportionately affects marginalized communities, exacerbating social inequities, driving displacement, and eroding cultural heritage, underscoring the need for inclusive, justice-centered adaptation frameworks. ▪ Closing critical data and policy gaps through coordinated vertical land motion observation, open-access standards, and equitable governance is essential to safeguard coastal populations and sustain long-term urban resilience.

  PublisherDOI

• From Roots to Resilience: Exploring the Drivers of Indigenous Entrepreneurship for Climate Adaptation

  Sustainability · 2025-05-14 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Our study investigates the drivers that foster the emergence of entrepreneurial responses to climate change among Indigenous communities. Indigenous peoples possess distinct worldviews and approaches to enterprise that prioritize community well-being and environmental stewardship over individual profit. Conventional entrepreneurship theories do not adequately capture Indigenous business approaches, leaving a limited understanding of how Indigenous communities merge traditional ecological knowledge with entrepreneurial activities to adapt to climate challenges. Through a systematic literature review (65 articles) and a case study of six Sri Lankan Vedda communities, we identified 15 key drivers that shape Indigenous climate-adaptive ventures and categorized them under five themes: (1) place-based relationships (resource stewardship, territorial connections, environmental risk factors); (2) intergenerational learning (traditional knowledge transfer, adaptation learning, collective experience); (3) community institutions (social networks, institutional support, overcoming the agency–structure paradox); (4) collective capacity (access to information, access to capital, community-oriented entrepreneurial traits); and (5) culturally aligned venture strategies (Indigenous business models, traditional products, local market relationships). Our study demonstrates how Vedda communities integrate entrepreneurship with cultural values to enhance climate resilience. Our research advances the field of Indigenous entrepreneurship while providing insights for policymakers and practitioners to support culturally appropriate climate adaptation strategies that enhance both community well-being and environmental sustainability.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Voices from Akplabanya: Community adaptation and social-ecological changes in coastal Ghana

  Cambridge Prisms Coastal Futures · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access

  Despite coastal regions' importance and vulnerability to climate change, Ghana's coasts remain underexplored through social-ecological systems (SES) approaches, with limited attention to Indigenous and local communities' adaptive responses to contemporary challenges. We conducted a study with the aims of (1) identifying the changes in coastal SES as perceived by the Akplabanya community and (2) examining the Akplabanya community's human adaptation responses to those changes. During two months of fieldwork in Akplabanya, we used four data collection methods: participant observation, semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. We found social-ecological changes related to five themes: (i) coastal climate change (sea-level rise), (ii) resource change (changes in land use), (iii) agrobiodiversity loss (changes in livestock), (iv) pollution (unsustainable practices) and (v) population change (increasing population). As adaptation responses to these changes, the community adaptive responses we found were (a) place (sense of place), (b) agency (emergence of food markets), (c) Indigenous and local knowledge (weakening of Indigenous knowledge), (d) collective action (collective solutions), (e) institutions (partnerships) and (f) learning (awareness). Our study highlights the urgent need for targeted research in regions like Ghana to guide and improve adaptation policy interventions for scientists, policymakers and researchers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Household Property-Level Adaptive Response to Coastal Flooding in Hampton, Virginia (USA): The Role of Perceived Vulnerability and Coping Capacity

  Coastal Management · 2025-04-24

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Towards resilient civilian-military interfaces on the coasts: addressing social vulnerability drivers

  Environmental Research Climate · 2025-05-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Coastal flooding poses a significant threat to communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems across the United States and is exacerbated by sea level rise. It also places coastal assets vital for national security at risk, such as military installations and supporting civilian and private sectors. Substantial research and policy are focused on community adaptation and resilience. However, less attention has been given to coastal places with complex and unique characteristics shaped by their proximity to and dependence on military installations. Thus, the main objective of this study is to assess selected social vulnerability around nine military installations at high risk of coastal flooding along the US East and Gulf Coasts and determine if they have distinctive vulnerability patterns with implications for coastal resilience. The representative coastal military installations were selected from the Department of Defense Regional Sea Level Database based on their coastal flood risk and verified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Risk Index data. The social vulnerability indicators were determined within a 5 mile buffer around selected installations using geospatial analysis. The results indicate significant differences in social vulnerability across coastal installations of interest, with minority populations, housing cost burden, poverty, and underage populations being the most prevalent in all locations. The study underscores the necessity for tailored resilience strategies designed to address specific vulnerabilities known to exacerbate flood risk while simultaneously providing broader socioeconomic co-benefits for nearby civilian communities.

  PublisherDOI

• Simulation of Flood-Induced Human Migration at the Municipal Scale: A Stochastic Agent-Based Model of Relocation Response to Coastal Flooding

  Water · 2024-01-11 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  Human migration triggered by flooding will create sociodemographic, economic, and cultural challenges in coastal communities, and adaptation to these challenges will primarily occur at the municipal level. However, existing migration models at larger spatial scales do not necessarily capture relevant social responses to flooding at the local and municipal levels. Furthermore, projecting migration dynamics into the future becomes difficult due to uncertainties in human–environment interactions, particularly when historic observations are used for model calibration. This study proposes a stochastic agent-based model (ABM) designed for the long-term projection of municipal-scale migration due to repeated flood events. A baseline model is demonstrated initially, capable of using stochastic bottom-up decision rules to replicate county-level population. This approach is then combined with physical flood-exposure data to simulate how population projections diverge under different flooding assumptions. The methodology is applied to a study area comprising 16 counties in coastal Virginia and Maryland, U.S., and include rural areas which are often overlooked in adaptation research. The results show that incorporating flood impacts results in divergent population growth patterns in both urban and rural locations, demonstrating potential municipal-level migration response to coastal flooding.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Flood-induced mobility in rural and urban coastal jurisdictions: a homeowner’s perspective

  Climatic Change · 2024-11-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Coastal flooding often exceeds homeowners’ capacity to cope with repetitive damages and profoundly disrupts their livelihoods. Permanent relocation has been proposed as a solution for some coastal areas experiencing recurrent flooding and anticipating acceleration of impacts. However, it is unclear if homeowners living in such areas would support this strategy, where they would choose to go, and why. This study evaluates the willingness to relocate and the reasoning behind it among rural and urban homeowners residing in coastal high-risk areas. The rural versus urban comparison explores how attitudes toward relocation differ between these settings with distinct sociodemographic, economic, and cultural profiles. A mail survey administered on the Eastern Shore, Maryland, and in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, Virginia, measured how willingness to relocate differs across the socioeconomic spectrum, prior flood exposure, concerns with flood impacts, and preferences for relocation destination. The survey responses were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results show that more than one-third of respondents would consider relocating. The willingness to relocate was marginally influenced by socioeconomic factors and flood experiences and instead was significantly correlated with the risk of disastrous flooding, inadequate insurance compensation, and worsening crime. However, data show a clear shift in relocation support and the distance of the preferred destination from minor to significant flooding. Rural respondents are slightly less likely to relocate than urban ones. Descriptive statistics indicate nuanced differences in flood experiences, reasons to relocate, and preferences for a new destination between rural and urban populations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Characterizing Climatic Socio‐Environmental Tipping Points in Coastal Communities: A Conceptual Framework for Research and Practice

  Earth s Future · 2024-07-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The concept of climate tipping points in socio‐environmental systems is increasingly being used to describe nonlinear climate change impacts and encourage social transformations in response to climate change. However, the processes that lead to these tipping points and their impacts are highly complex and deeply uncertain. This is due to numerous interacting environmental and societal system components, constant system evolution, and uncertainty in the relationships between events and their consequences. In the face of this complexity and uncertainty, this research presents a conceptual framework that describes systemic processes that could lead to tipping points socio‐environmental systems, with a focus on coastal communities facing sea level rise. Within this context, we propose an organizational framework for system description that consists of elements, state variables, links, internal processes, and exogenous influences. This framework is then used to describe three mechanisms by which socio‐environmental tipping could occur: feedback processes, cascading linkages, and nonlinear relationships. We presented this conceptual framework to an expert panel of coastal practitioners and found that it has potential to characterize the effects of secondary climatic impacts that are rarely the focus of coastal risk analyses. Finally, we identify salient areas for further research that can build upon the proposed conceptual framework to inform practical efforts that support climate adaptation and resilience.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The exposure of vulnerable coastal populations to flood-induced Natech events in Hampton Roads, Virginia

  Natural Hazards · 2023-09-14 · 6 citations

  articleCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Drivers of Slow-Onset Displacement in the Coastal Mid-Atlantic Region and Preferences for Receiving Locations

  2023-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Assessing the Impacts of Coastal Flood-Induced Relocation on Local Jurisdictions

  NSF · $325k · 2019–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Jennifer L. Irish

  Center for Coastal Studies

  14 shared

• Julie Shortridge

  Center for Coastal Studies

  10 shared

• Olga Wilhelmi

  9 shared

• Yang Shao

  8 shared

• Guillaume Rohat

  University of Geneva

  5 shared

• Christopher W. Zobel

  5 shared

• Aishwarya Borate

  University of California, Irvine

  5 shared

• Kyle T. Mandli

  Applied Mathematics (United States)

  5 shared

Labs

• Center for Geospatial Information TechnologyPI

  Not provided

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the 2019 Early Career Innovators Program at the Na…
• Climigration Network Work Group Chair