UWI St. Augustine has launched a project to advance responsible AI for climate resilience in Small Island Developing States.
The Climate Resilience Platform for Small Island Developing States (AI4SIDS) is a multidisciplinary research and innovation initiative supported through the university’s Research and Development Impact Fund.
It says the project responds to a critical challenge on how to harness rapidly advancing artificial intelligence technologies in ways that are locally relevant, responsible and capable of strengthening climate resilience and disaster risk management.
“Small island states face distinctive climate risks, including flooding, extreme rainfall, coastal hazards and cascading impacts on infrastructure, communities, health systems and public services. At the same time, information needed for preparedness, planning and response may be distributed across multiple datasets, organisations and systems. AI4SIDS will investigate how artificial intelligence can help connect and interpret these different sources of evidence to support more timely, informed and accountable decision-making,” it adds.
Research will explore areas including AI-supported climate and disaster-risk intelligence, retrieval-augmented generation, predictive analytics, geospatial information, responsible AI, data governance and human-centred decision support.
The university adds that AI4SIDS will adopt a multidisciplinary and socio-technical approach – rather than treating AI as a standalone technology, the project considers how technical systems interact with institutional processes, governance requirements, human expertise and community needs.
AI4SIDS is led by Dr Letetia Mary Addison, Principal Investigator, together with Dr Kris Manohar and Dr Christine Descartes as Co-Investigators, with Emeritus Professor Patrick Hosein ORTT serving as Technical Advisor.
The wider research team will include expertise spanning artificial intelligence, climate and disaster risk, data science, geospatial analysis, digital platforms, governance, public health and community engagement
