The current global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 is poised to create a humanitarian crisis in terms of the loss of human life, long term health impacts, and socio-economic upheaval. However, the severity of such impacts varies widely by country, by region, and even city and by city.

A column written by civil engineering professor Edwin Tam for the latest issue of WE, the Faculty of Engineering’s annual magazine, notes that months in, there are still widely varying incidents of COVID-19 within the same region as the world faces ongoing waves of the pandemic.

A team of UWindsor scholars — Anneke Smit from law, Tirupati Bolisetti from civil engineering, and Myron Hlynka and Mohamed Belalia from mathematics and statistics, as well as Dr. Tam — is researching what are preferred characteristics and actions for municipalities to improve their resiliency to respond to and recover from pandemic scenarios.

“The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted how critical the medical services, transportation of goods and services, information technologies, and municipal utilities are to maintaining a functioning community. What differs by location is the resiliency to sustainably deliver goods and services, and the disruption to work, education, and social activities,” writes Tam.

“Our communities face calls to be bold and to emerge with a better, more sustainable, more resilient and fairer society out of the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. This ongoing research will help us to rethink our urban settlements to ensure they are equitable and resilient as we confront the challenges facing us in an uncertain 21st century.”

Read the full article in the latest issue of WE, the Faculty of Engineering’s annual magazine.