Motivating Local Climate Adaptation and Strengthening Resilience Making Local Data Trusted, Useful, and Used (2021) / Chapter Skim
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Motivating Local Climate Adaptation and Strengthening Resilience: Making Local Data Trusted, Useful, and Used
Motivating Local Climate Adaptation and Strengthening Resilience: Making Local Data Trusted, Useful, and Used
Pages 5-32
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Building and sustaining local capacities for climate resilience requires both resilient physical and social infrastructure systems and inclusive, resilient communities. GOALS OF THE COMMITTEE In 2020, as part of its efforts to reduce the immense human and financial toll of natural hazards and other large-scale emergencies, FEMA asked the Resilient America Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene the Committee on Applied Research Topics for Hazard Mitigation and Resilience.
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5 A second workshop and this report examine the theme of Motivating Local Climate Adaptation and Strengthening Resilience (originally titled Incorporating Future Climate Conditions into Local Action)
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The first is the Resilient America Program, which seeks to implement recommendations from the 2012 report to strengthen community resilience and adaptation. The second is the Resilient America Roundtable, which convenes experts to discuss and catalyze activities that build resilience to extreme events at the community, regional, national, and international levels.
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The committee seeks to learn from those experiences and improve the nature and applicability of basic and applied hazards research for strengthened community resilience to threats and disruptions from hazards, including those affected by climate change. PUBLIC WORKSHOP On May 25, 2021, the committee held a 1 day-long virtual webinar on the theme of Motivating Local Climate Adaptation and Strengthening Resilience.
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6 In addition to the workshop, the committee joined an open session of the Resilient America Roundtable on May 28, 2021, to discuss this theme with roundtable members. APPLIED RESEARCH PRIORITIES Based on input from the workshop and committee members' knowledge and experiences with natural hazard mitigation and resilience, the committee chose three applied research topics as priorities in motivating local action to address climate impacts and build resilience: 1.
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The committee recognizes that other important gaps and barriers remain to convert local climate knowledge into sustained and equitable climate adaptation actions. These include governance, communication, funding, community decision-making, and coordination with neighbors and other levels of government.
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Second, climate data need to be vetted and translated into information that is useful at a local level. Finally, information that communities receive from other sources needs to reflect the challenges and opportunities of those communities to not just be useful, but also used.
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Boxes 3 and 4 provide examples of translating local and climate data into actionable information for adaptation planning. Box 3 Planning for and Managing Societal Response to Extreme Events and Climate Change The Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP)
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Local communities often request climate data about rainfall from the East-West Center; however, there is only one remaining stream gauge in the region. With varying microclimates, contentious historical contexts, and vast data uncertainties, the East-West Center
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All of these factors can affect the process of converting data into useful, valid information for community use. One possible approach to these issues could be developing a clearinghouse of climate data and analysis tools that are vetted for quality and applicability by hazard, location, and audience (e.g., riverine flooding in the Southeast)
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Using a data-driven approach, FernLeaf has helped these communities develop adaptation planning projects, often within a formal hazard mitigation planning process. FernLeaf tends to be hired by small- to medium-sized communities that, often through state programs, acquire the funding necessary to initiate the process of resilience planning.
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ASFPM wrote the guide recognizing that elected officials are not flood experts. The guide is structured to address elected officials' particular needs for accessible information on flood hazards, hazard mitigation measures, and resources by answering specific questions that communities often have.
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in accessing actionable climate data? What are key changes that data and tool developers can make to accommodate and support varying levels of local community capacities in accessing and analyzing actionable information?
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Integrating that information into the tools and systems used for community decision-making for climate challenges and ongoing operations leverages the data-gathering work to inform multiple decisions. Finally, climate impacts may affect many aspects of a community, such as infrastructure, housing, industry, and the economy.
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Consequently, efforts to facilitate local access to data or enhance local use of analysis tools should focus on the datasets and tools most useful and applicable to appropriate local climate adaptation actions. The costs and relative benefits of potential investment options are important considerations to help set local priorities.
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She hopes to leverage the program to prioritize community-preferred mitigation measures, protect neighborhood financial stability and well-being, and build capacity for intervening in political systems to make those changes. The overall goal of Climate Safe Neighborhoods is to help repair the harm done by redlining and prevent future damage by putting residents into positions of leadership, where climate resilience decisions are often made.
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Another possible role is that of a "climate translator" who can assist communities and groups in accessing climate data and putting it to use. This can facilitate engagement by communities and groups who do not have expertise in climate impacts or applying climate data and information in adaptation discussions and deliberations over actions.
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• Leverage and apply experiences from decision and communications sciences to motivate local climate adaptation decisions and actions. Do factors such as understanding of threats, social norms, economic implications, and the ability to take effective action impact individual and local decisions and actions?
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Transparent communication becomes important in these interactions, such as the need to articulate the costs of inaction, avoided costs, limitations of any data sources, and the long-term implications of short-term actions. Data translation must communicate in the language of busy local decision-makers and community members who have many other competing interests and other differences such as in levels of understanding of science and effects from climate impacts and adaptation actions.
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b See Chincoteague Resilience Action Checklist: Product of the Raft Resilience Action Workshop, August 2018 at https://raft.ien.virginia.edu/2018-2019-eastern-shore. In some cases, building trust and partnerships to address one issue, such as climate threats, requires work on other concerns that may present a fundamental challenge to a community.
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that strengthen trust in policies and actions to address climate impacts. Why is trust in the public institutions that program and fund collective climate actions declining?
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Indigenous peoples are facing some of the harshest impacts from climate change because of their locations and marginalization. It has already been recognized that their links to the natural world and generational ecological and resource management knowledge are critical for local climate adaptation.
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Equity and Inclusion As with social capital and social connectedness, equity and inclusion are fundamental principles in considering local action to address climate impacts and strengthen resilience. As observed in the earlier report, equity is an inherently transdisciplinary issue that requires integrated research and engagement approaches.
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, the feasibility of motivating local action to address climate impacts and build resilience depends on several factors, including applicability, affordability, practicality, portability, scalability, and justifiability. But, perhaps most importantly, communities need resources to move forward on climate action, whether in the form of data, dollars, knowledge, or understanding.
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The committee sought to identify these applied research needs and opportunities in climate data, community decision-making, and existing local contexts to strengthen capacities for community climate resilience. To inform this work, the committee organized a 1-day workshop to gather information and applied research topic insights from researchers, with panels addressing the following topics: • Climate and Data Science for Hazard Mitigation and Resilience at the Local Level • Translating Data for Motivating Local Resilience Action • Environmental Justice and Impacts of Historical Inequities: Lessons for Climate Adaptation and Resilience • Reactive and Proactive Local Actions and Data Translation for Decision-Makers Based on the presentations, examples, and research opportunities discussed in this workshop, the committee identified three applied research priorities with several underlying topics for Motivating Local Action to Address Climate Impacts and Build Resilience: 1.
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• Institutionalize climate resilience considerations and actions in local community decision-making and investments. • Leverage and apply experiences from decision and communications sciences to motivate local climate adaptation decisions and action.
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SELECTED REFERENCES The following materials provide a further introduction to motivating local action to address climate impacts and build resilience, as well as for some of the programs and interventions referenced in this report. The following materials provide examples of tools and programs for local action to address climate impacts and build resilience.
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• National Congress of American Indians: Natural Resource Conservation Policy: Incorporating Tribal Perspectives [https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1045669.pdf] • University of Washington Climate Impacts Group: Tribal Vulnerability Assessment Resources [https://cig.uw.edu/resources/tribal-vulnerability-assessment-resources/]
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