Motivating Local Climate Adaptation and Strengthening Resilience: Making Local Data Trusted, Useful, and Used
Local communities are already experiencing dire effects caused by climate change that are expected to increase in frequency, intensity, duration, and type.2 Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are causing droughts, floods, and declines in air and water quality. Heat waves and droughts are worsening human health, increasing the risks of wildfires, and damaging ecosystems, including the parks, playfields, and natural areas within and close to communities. Warming water, sea-level rise, high-tide flooding, coastal erosion, and higher storm surges are creating severe hazards for communities and infrastructure along and near coastlines. Changes in climate are disrupting agriculture and fisheries, threatening livelihoods, and posing the risk of food price instability.
Towns and cities, states, and the nation are already experiencing increased impacts from this changing risk landscape.3 The majority of Americans say that climate change is affecting their local communities,4 and the impacts on communities will continue to grow. Simultaneously, public concern about climate-related challenges is increasing, available information and resources on climate risks are expanding, and cities across the country and the globe are developing approaches to and experience with measures for mitigating climate impacts. Building and sustaining local capacities for climate resilience requires both resilient physical and social infrastructure systems and inclusive, resilient communities.
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. (See Box 1 for further information on the Resilient America Program). Biographical sketches of the committee members appear in Appendix A of this report.
The Statement of Task from FEMA to the committee is as follows:
A committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will identify applied research topics, information, and expertise that can inform action and collaborative opportunities within the natural hazard mitigation and resilience fields. The
2 U.S. Global Change Research Program. 2019. Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office.
3 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Attribution of extreme weather events in the context of climate change. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
4 Hefferon, M. 2019. Most Americans say climate change impacts their community, but effects vary by region. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/02/most-americans-say-climate-change-impactstheir-community-but-effects-vary-by-region.
committee will convene two public workshops as the primary source of information for its work, supplemented by background materials collected for the workshops and discussions at public sessions of the Resilient America Roundtable.
Each workshop will focus on distinct hazard mitigation and resilience issues and research questions, such as compound and cascading hazard incidents; risk communication and decision-making in a changing risk landscape; nature-based solutions, buyouts, and managed retreat options for coastal risks; and equity and social vulnerability considerations in risk and decision metrics. Following each workshop, the committee will prepare a brief consensus study report that identifies and summarizes key research topics for the applied research community in the specific areas discussed at the workshop. Each report will contain findings but no recommendations and will be limited to the topics covered at that workshop.
The committee’s initial meeting examined a list of possible themes for the workshops generated by the Resilient America Program, its staff, and members of the committee. These themes included Buyouts, Managed Retreat, and Relocation; Incorporating Future Climate Conditions into Local Actions; Nature-Based Infrastructure; Compounding and Cascading Events; Social Capital and Social Connectedness for Resilience; Making the Business Case for Resilience Investment; and Effective Risk Communications. The committee evaluated these potential themes based on their importance to advancing hazard mitigation and resilience, the state of current science and practice available for applied research on each theme, and the potential for new insights and approaches. Based on these criteria, the committee selected Social Capital and Social Connectedness for Resilience as the theme of the first workshop and the subject of an earlier report.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).
As with the first report, a public workshop organized and delivered by the committee served as the primary input for the committee’s deliberations and the conclusions in this report. Rather than a proceedings or summary of the information-gathering workshop, this report represents the committee’s distillation of what was heard at the workshop and what was have judged to be the most important applied research topics to motivate local action to address climate impacts and build resilience.
This report contains the committee’s findings and conclusions, but no recommendations, and is limited to the topics covered at the public information gathering events. This activity was designed to provide guidance for active and ongoing efforts to move science and data into action and to focus the attention and efforts of the applied research community. FEMA asked the committee to prepare the two reports on an accelerated timescale, with the aim of informing and energizing current applied research and yielding “compound interest” on such investments and initiatives. To provide this rapid guidance, the committee conducted this study using a consensus approach that centered information gathering around a public, 1 day-long virtual workshop. The workshop surveyed existing knowledge and practice, featuring a diversity of voices and expertise on this topic in place of in-depth literature reviews. Committee members then combined the information presented at each workshop with their own knowledge and experience to arrive at a list of priority applied research topics. They recognize that significant and growing bodies of
5 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Enhancing community resilience through social capital and social connectedness: Stronger together! Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
literature and experience exist for each of the chosen applied research topics and recognize the need for a comprehensive inventory of information and expertise related to these topics. An initial list of references on motivating local climate adaptation and strengthening resilience is provided at the end of the report.
In the committee’s initial meeting, committee members identified several requirements for applied research that have relevance to both subsequent reports. First, the committee considers equity to be the top priority to ensure that all communities, and all groups within communities, are included in and benefit from applied research and enhanced resilience. Second, the committee emphasizes the importance of incorporating multi-directional knowledge transfer to support community dissemination and implementation. Third, to facilitate the adoption and application of research results, the committee focuses on practical, achievable, affordable,
sustainable, and scalable solutions. These three principles are discussed in detail later in this report.
The conception of community and community groups has also been an important consideration in the committee’s thinking. The term “community” is used in an expansive sense as reflecting the full range of groups comprising a community, each of which has individual and shared interests, concerns, and resources. (See Box 2 for definitions used in this report). Throughout this report, the committee identifies important prerequisites and considerations for engaging and learning from all parts of the community to build trust and support for community decisions and actions. Climate change impacts will differ by community, potentially affecting access and use of some locations, the economy, or traditional ways of living in the community, each of which may challenge how a community defines and understands itself. Based on its location, history, residents, and economy, every community is unique in its climate-related challenges and opportunities for addressing and adapting to them.
The primary audience for this report includes researchers in the fields of hazard and disaster risk reduction, resilience, and related fields that contribute to these disciplines. This includes researchers in hazard-specific or general hazard and resilience research centers and cooperative institutions engaged with states and local communities on hazard-related challenges. Broader audiences include public, private, nongovernmental, philanthropic, and academic organizations at the local, regional, state, federal, and international levels seeking to reduce the impacts, losses, and suffering across the United States from disasters due to natural or technological hazards, public health emergencies, and other significant threats to communities and the nation. The ultimate aim of the committee’s activities is to enable and empower applied research that will strengthen capacities for hazard mitigation and resilience in communities, across the nation, and around the world. A wide range of groups are involved in and lead this applied research, from academic research programs to local communities and community groups. In recent years, significant applied research and action on climate adaptation have been happening at the local level across the United States. 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.
On May 25, 2021, the committee held a 1 day-long virtual webinar on the theme of Motivating Local Climate Adaptation and Strengthening Resilience. The agenda for the workshop appears in Appendix B, and biographical sketches for presenters are in Appendix C. Workshop panelists included individuals from the public and private sectors, organizations involved in various resilience activities across the United States, and the research, communications, practitioner, community engagement, and policy communities, including state and local officials. Virtual participants attending the workshop represented similar communities. The committee asked workshop panelists to consider and address the questions listed in Appendix D to help determine unmet applied research needs within the workshop theme.
Workshop presentations and discussions provided rich information, offered varied perspectives, and identified significant research opportunities for the theme of Motivating Local Climate Adaptation and Strengthening Resilience. In this report, the committee considered and
integrated information from these presentations to identify and select the applied research topics discussed in this report. Full videos of the individual panelists’ contributions are available on the webpage for the event.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.
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:
- Co-production of stakeholder-friendly data and useful information with local communities
- Development of integrated local approaches to strengthening climate adaptation and resilience
- Building trust in data, processes, and partners to motivate local climate action
Each of these applied research priorities is discussed in detail in the following sections. At the end of each section, the committee includes specific applied research topics and research questions that were considered important for advancing these priorities (see Figure 1).
Available, applicable, and accessible data and information are essential for informed hazard mitigation and climate adaptation actions. The applied research topics identified in this report are focused on the production and compilation of community and climate data appropriate for use at the local level within integrated approaches to climate adaptation. Whether scientifically generated or gathered from local knowledge (e.g., oral histories or everyday
6 See https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/05-25-2021/applied-research-topics-for-hazard-mitigation-andresilience-incorporating-future-climate-conditions-into-local-actions-data-gathering-workshop-2.
experiences), it is crucial that such data is co-produced and vetted. Only then will there be trust and mutual respect in the integration and use of such data and information in local systems and climate adaptation work.
This applied research aims to enable communities to reduce vulnerabilities to climate impacts. 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. To address these additional challenges, applied research for climate adaptation would benefit from inclusion of experts in fields such as public administration, political science, political economy, and decision sciences.
Data and information are essential for understanding and addressing climate-driven hazards and their impacts. In this report, the term “data” is used generally to refer to raw numbers, observations, or recorded phenomena that have not yet been organized to help inform decisions or actions systematically. “Information” generally refers to data that have been systematically organized, analyzed, or interpreted and may have been derived through reviews of findings on quality, applicability, and appropriate decisions for a specific locale or region. Translation of data into information is an action to be considered at each stage of information
dissemination and use, as the specific form and content of that information may vary by user and application. Accuracy, reproducibility, accessibility, transparency, and usability are important factors for data and information to inform community deliberations, priorities, and decisions.
Collaborative relationships between all stakeholders who transfer data, information, knowledge, and insight into on-the-ground needs, opportunities, and constraints for community action can enable a shared understanding of issues and broader agreement for critical, life-saving decisions and actions. This document uses the terms “co-development” and “co-production” to refer to multi-stakeholder, mutually developed collaborative work.7 “Co-development” refers to stakeholders bilaterally agreeing on data, information, goals, and agendas. “Co-production” refers to stakeholders bilaterally agreeing on actions to implement collaborative work to achieve the goals. Reciprocity and transparency among participants are key to successful collaborations and mutual co-development. Participants will need to agree upon processes for goal setting and decision-making, depending on the type and importance of issues.
Co-production respectfully engages the ultimate users of data, information, and solutions in their collection, development, and long-term refinement. Co-development processes provide ongoing opportunities to incorporate and address local questions and concerns, strengthen existing knowledge and understanding, and focus attention on facilitation in addition to community-relevant delivery.8 Stakeholder groups engaged in co-production for climate resilience solutions bring different perspectives and will likely have different levels of experience with each topic under investigation. Co-production requires the mutual engagement of all affected stakeholders at the earliest possible moment. Special attention must be given to identifying and respectfully including local groups who have been historically marginalized, such as Native peoples who may have critical, Indigenous knowledge of resource management and natural environments.
Communities need information that they can effectively use in making decisions and investments that reduce the vulnerability and strengthen the resilience of their residents, economy, and environment. Assembling and using that information requires three things. First, data, while often abundantly available to communities, can be challenging for local communities and users to navigate, access, understand, and evaluate relative to local needs and questions. 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. Each of these processes can be the target of applied research.
Data must be meaningful for communities. Translation of data into information can imply a one-way process. However, a better concept might be a crosswalk in which data providers and users in the community examine available data to determine its applicability (e.g., type, scale, detail of data) relative to the community’s needs. For data developed externally to the community, a crosswalk may be conducted with the assistance of a climate data “translator.” Such a translator should have knowledge of available data, the data’s applications and limits, and the community’s needs and wants, which may vary across community groups. The public
7 Woodall, L. C., S. Talma, O. Steeds, P. Stefanoudis, M-M. Jeremie-Muzungaile, and A. de Comarmond. 2021. Co-development, coproduction and co-dissemination of scientific research: a case study to demonstrate mutual benefits. Biology Letters 17(4):20200699.
8 Boyle, D., J. Slay, and L. Stephens. 2010. Public services inside out: Putting co-production into practice. New Economics Foundation. https://neweconomics.org/2010/04/public-services-inside.
workshop included multiple examples of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) programs that partner with communities to navigate and translate climate data for local use, including Mark Shafer’s (University of Oklahoma) discussion of the NOAA/RISA [Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments] program and his work in the southeast United States (see Box 3) and the work of the Northeast Regional Climate Center, presented by Arthur DeGaetano (Cornell University).
Consistent with a commitment to co-development, translation work aims to facilitate community engagement and decision-making. In co-development, climate translators contribute as authentic and integrated participants, which requires transparency and trust, particularly if they are not native to that community. For communities with sufficient resources, appropriately selected “impact analysts” who translate data into information on tangible effects in the community could play an important role (e.g., through modeling and analysis tools not otherwise available within the community). For other communities, approaches need to be identified in which information can flow both ways between data providers and community recipients of data and information. Community stakeholders give essential context and meaning to data and information through shared purpose and values, history, and lived experience. In addition to ensuring that data and information fit local conditions and needs, collaborative engagement between data providers and local users builds mutual knowledge and understanding of the data and local conditions and experiences. Boxes 3 and 4 provide examples of translating local and climate data into actionable information for adaptation planning.
A common message heard during the workshop is that local officials are inundated with data but lack usable information. One problem is that local officials often do not have the background information, training, resources, or time they need to use and analyze the available data. Small- and medium-sized communities typically lack access to the technical expertise needed to interpret and apply such data. Larger communities are more likely to have expertise on staff but may be required to address complex dependencies and overlapping issues related to higher densities and urban infrastructure systems. Available data may not apply to the problems that community members face. They may use metrics that do not translate to local applications, or they may be too broad or narrowly focused to be usable. For example, rainfall data can be especially challenging to interpret locally or for short time intervals. National or regional datasets, such as flood maps or modelling-based information, may contain gaps or out-of-date information, in which case local groups may have more current and accurate information based on recent experience. Applied research can provide important guidance on adjusting solutions for local situations and constraints to produce promising climate adaptation actions and investments.
Data may lack recognition of the indirect and intangible factors that make a substantial difference in the lives of community members. Less obvious or intangible factors of climate change threats may include impacts on social identity (e.g., collective activism such as the ongoing youth climate strikes) or loss of community cohesiveness (e.g., from climate migration, disruptions to the built environment, or intergroup tensions because of ideological conflicts). Short- and long-term indirect costs from hazard and climate impacts can include economic effects on businesses and tourism, disruption of transportation and supplies, and stressed community social fabric and quality of life. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, revealed many social impacts (e.g., isolation, mistrust in public officials, and remote working and schooling) and health impacts (e.g., the cost of suffering from disease or mental health conditions) that are largely distinct from specific costs that are primarily calculated in BCAs. (Benefit-benefit analyses are discussed further in the next section of this report.)
The usefulness and availability of data vary by time, place, and hazard across the country. Communities operate differently, face different threats, and have different vulnerabilities. Individual communities may want different kinds of data depending on their own needs and preferences. Communities may also have evolving data needs, especially given climate-related hazards that are changing over time. One such example from the workshop concerning data usefulness is Victoria Keener’s (East-West Center) presentation of the East-West Center’s work across Hawaii and the U.S.-affiliated Pacific islands. Their region covers more than 300,000 square miles of land and millions of square miles of ocean, including key strategic sites for the U.S. military. 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
has found that predictions and models are most valuable when co-developed with as many stakeholders as possible.
Understanding expected climate impacts on a community and designing adaptation responses requires access and use of various data on physical assets, natural hazards, and demographic and social characteristics, all of which may differ on data scale, definitions, currency, and collection methods. In combining data, a challenge at all levels of government is how to select and integrate data while retaining validity. FEMA’s National Risk Index (NRI)9 combines historical data on detailed hazard information for 18 natural hazards with economic impact and vulnerability measures. The NRI provides a methodology for calculating risk, economic loss, social vulnerability, and resilience based on these inputs and nationwide results from these calculations for planning and comparison purposes at the national level. The NRI primer10 and technical documentation11 provide important sources and background information on the data and methodologies applied in constructing the NRI. The “assumptions and limitations” listed in the NRI Primer recognize that locally available data will often be more accurate than the data used in the national index and recommend that communities use this local data to recalculate impact indices for local applications.
Data derived from experiences with past hazards likely provides an incomplete picture of the future, although great strides can be made with thoughtful and adaptive forecasts and models. As the climate and land development continually change, what was previously the 100-year flood could be today’s 10-year flood. Communities are also changing, and vulnerability, as depicted in population data, may be known only up to the last data gathering interval, such as a decennial census. How data are received and documented over time evolves, and data always contain uncertainties and biases. 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). Though such a clearinghouse would undoubtedly have omissions, it could be helpful for many communities by providing an easily accessible guide to available information and a clear starting point for communities beginning this work, and expanding resources used by communities that are further advanced in this work.
In some cases, local officials have access to better data and information than state or federal hazard managers do. For example, a local community may pay for light detection and ranging data defining land elevation with better than 1 foot of elevation accuracy. Local communities also have the lived experience of how hazards manifest at their level. However, state and federal officials may not have systematic ways of knowing about and accessing these data, as communities typically do not have ways of feeding data back to state or federal organizations to improve their hazard assessments. Sometimes communities may resist having hazards identified accurately because of the costs that could be involved. Such costs could be monetary or inequitable impacts on community groups. For instance, communities with significant flood risks may be concerned that updated assessments may result in higher insurance
rates, while community groups who have experienced displacement in the past may have concerns for community integrity or cultural heritage.
Once a community has assembled the available data and information, it will need to vet, integrate, analyze, and interpret that information and analysis to inform priorities, policies, and actions for climate adaptation. Guidance for climate adaptation planning is available from many sources, including federal agencies,12 cities, and regions across the United States that have implemented climate adaptation plans. Box 5 discusses two guides that make technical information and processes accessible and useful to specific user groups—elected officials and citizens. Engaging with jurisdictions that have implemented adaptation plans, particularly ones with similar local characteristics or hazard profiles, provides opportunities for peer-to-peer learning between communities.
12 See resource list at the end of this report.
Federal, state, and local governments have different and complementary roles and responsibilities for climate adaptation and other actions, often with different dividing lines between those roles in different locations. Municipalities may have greater latitude for action in “home rule” states than those in states with limited authority. In the workshop, for example, Ann Phillips (State of Virginia) cited Virginia’s “Dillon’s Rule,” under which the Virginia localities’ ability to enact local laws is generally restricted except where authorized by the state’s General Assembly. By law, FEMA interfaces with state governments and consequently only works indirectly with local governments in its programs. However, hazard mitigation typically happens at the local level, even if the state or federal government provides resources for that mitigation. Applied research could benefit processes that allow local community data to be fed into state and federal systems and on how such feedback affects the information available to and decisions made by localities. However, for agencies and organizations compiling integrated datasets at the regional or national levels, checking locally supplied data for accuracy and consistency can be challenging.
Ultimately, the ability of local stakeholders and decision-makers to take appropriate action is the best measure of success for co-production of climate hazard and impact data. True co-production efforts strengthen this ability by building knowledge and understanding in both data producers and local partners. The same efforts simultaneously enhance the data and information produced and the transparency of and trust in the process and information.
Applied research topics on co-production of stakeholder-friendly data and useful information for local communities include
- Develop data baselines that are both useful and used by local communities to evaluate climate-related threats. What data, information, and resources are communities currently using (if any), how frequently are they using them, and why are they using them (e.g., do they trust the source or is it easily accessible)? How effective are communities at finding appropriate tools? What are key gaps in available data and why do they exist? In what ways do questions and information needs differ by community size and setting?
- Compile roadmaps and scenarios for local communities to identify, access, and evaluate appropriate data for understanding and addressing climate threats. What do stakeholders need to know to select and apply appropriate tools to get the best information to address their own needs and questions? How do communities and stakeholders navigate and evaluate (considering their location, audience, and usability) available and appropriate climate data sources and tools? What examples are available from other communities?
- Develop guidance for evaluating climate data and information and improving accessibility and usability of climate data tools. Who needs to be involved in the development of these resources beyond the data developers? Where are opportunities to reduce friction (time-consuming or inconvenient processes) 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? What resources can communities engage to assess the reliability of available information?
- Mutually engage local stakeholders in producing, analyzing, and communicating information on climate-related hazards and impacts. What is required to strengthen
- the capacity of community groups for full participation in these tasks? Why have other citizen science initiatives been successful (or unsuccessful) in their climate adaptation efforts? What are the opportunities and challenges for locally developed data to inform and be included in regional and national datasets? How can data repositories and users assess the reliability of locally developed data?
- Co-identify information needs and methods for assessing actual and expected climate impacts on people, communities, economies, and natural systems. What information is needed to understand and promote practitioner action on direct, indirect, and intangible impacts across communities (social, economic, environmental) and for vulnerable groups (e.g., under-resourced groups living in higher risk areas)? Has co-development of analyses that integrate climate science and data with community knowledge of vulnerabilities and impacts been successful, and if so, why?
Once data and information are available in a community through the processes described above, they need to be integrated into community decision-making. This requires a framework to guide and inform decision-making that will lead to tangible, appropriate results. There are multiple dimensions to integrated approaches for climate adaptation and resilience. Co-production of data and information facilitate the integration of community needs and values into data collected and selected for use in the analysis. 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. Consequently, climate adaptation planning and investment must be integrated broadly into local community planning and decision processes. Holistic approaches recognize and respond to interconnections and dependencies across disciplines, as well as from the beginning to the end of local processes, iteratively connecting data and information on the drivers and impacts of community and climate challenges to the solutions that the community implements in response.
An integrated systems approach is a key way to translate information into action and ensure holistic decisions. Connecting information with opportunities for action requires understanding different hazards and vulnerabilities, risk perceptions and values, historical inequities and their impacts, and available community capabilities and assets. Extensive community involvement, with connections among institutions such as schools, businesses, and local governments, expands the information and experience base for deliberations, builds understanding and buy-in for decisions, and strengthens networks for implementing climate actions. Collection and development of data and the development of integrated approaches for assessing climate impact and determining action are not separate activities. An integrated framework for understanding and addressing a community’s climate challenges can provide essential guidance for the types, scale, and detail of data needed to inform analysis and decision-making, which in turn can help focus co-development efforts.
A distributed but integrated decision-making approach can also help integrate climate resilience into the mainstream of community decision-making. Chaffee County, Colorado, for
instance, developed the shared vision, Envision Chaffee County,13 through a broad-engagement process to identify goals and actions, including resilience efforts, such as a program to promote the development of defensible space to reduce wildfire risks to homes. Community members are engaged in collecting community data and monitoring progress on this vision.
The best decision-support mechanisms are frictionless (i.e., removal of unnecessary time-consuming or inconvenient processes). New technology can, when designed appropriately, enable access and analyses that are challenging or more expensive using manual methods. Mobile technologies, frictionless apps designed to seamlessly coordinate action, Cloud-based information support, and other innovations can facilitate productive data and information use. These kinds of technology-mediated, frictionless interactions provide access to data and tools in ways that motivate action. Poorly designed technological solutions or ones that use expensive technology or systems may impede climate action and erode trust for implementing future technologies. While ease of access and application of data and tools are important factors, getting to the right or best-fitting answers is the ultimate objective. 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. BCA tools have been developed to provide guidance for priority and investments. However, this approach has limitations. First, such analyses typically consider only financial factors. As a result, a BCA might lead a government to protect only the parts of a city that contain high-value properties while dismissing parts of a community where less advantaged people live. In this way, BCAs can perpetuate decades- and centuries-old social and economic disadvantages. Extending BCAs to factors beyond money, thus yielding a better cost-effectiveness approach, is a valuable topic for applied research.
BCA tools have been developed to quantify and compare risks and benefits for resource allocation decisions in terms of common units, usually dollars. Current BCA tools have many limitations that may lead to disproportionate distribution of costs and benefits across the community when these tools are used to determine resource allocation for climate actions. For example, the BCA results for flood protection in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, recommended only protecting the more “valuable” white-collar homes on the east side of the river. With no improvements for the west side, which mostly houses working-class residents, the project would have further reinforced a social divide that has existed for more than 150 years within the community. In her work with communities on climate change, Tonya Graham (City of Ashland, Oregon) highlighted during the workshop the need for revisiting BCAs after investments are complete to identify potential multiple, ongoing benefits that were overlooked in the initial analysis. Intangible community assets (e.g., community culture and history, social capital, and local connectedness) and climate threat impacts (e.g., life disruptions, mental health impacts) can be difficult to quantify adequately in a BCA, and many BCA inputs may incorporate and reinforce historical injustices. Similar to the Cedar Rapids example, racially motivated redlining practices throughout the country have negatively affected home values, primarily for people of color. Decisions based on analyses without considering these historical patterns can exacerbate existing disparities. For more information on redlining and its impact on climate injustices, as described in the workshop by Cate Mingoya (Groundworks USA), see Box 6.
Local climate adaptation actions should be designed to address current and future risks. Individuals and communities can often have difficulties with considering and prioritizing long-term challenges, even those with potentially significant impacts, in the face of current, pressing issues. In BCAs, the relative value of short- and long-term risk reduction investments may be embedded in parameters like discount rates, which limit intentional local discussion and decisions on these important tradeoffs. Similarly, the value of investments that grow over time, such as natural infrastructure, may be diminished in BCA when benefits are valued at the time of investment. An example of this is living shorelines (coastal edges made of natural materials), which, unlike concrete seawalls that begin deteriorating after installation, provide more wildlife habitat and community resilience as they grow over time. As communities consider tradeoffs and priorities between short- and long-term benefits and costs, the communications and decision sciences literature may provide useful guidance and insights.
BCA provides a measure for quantifying the returns on investment from a project, which can be attractive to lawmakers and program managers seeking to ensure that public money is well spent and advances program aims. Consequently, many programs that provide federal support for hazard mitigation and climate adaptation use BCA as a primary decision tool for evaluating funding proposals. The limitations of the BCA approach, including equity concerns, have prompted evaluations of BCA’s role as a primary decision tool for federal and other funds.14 There is a corresponding need for applied research into innovative approaches to evaluate the full, multi-dimensional costs and benefits of hazard mitigation and climate adaptation investments, both within BCA and as alternatives to it.
Communities may need technical expertise to make decisions in integrated ways and achieve full participation of community groups in the process. This often involves a feedback loop, in which a source of technical expertise is informed by the expertise that exists within a community. One possibility that deserves investigation is using a matching program in which a community is connected to a scientist, lawyer, urban planner, or other expert to assist with a specific problem. 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. The specifics of a place’s history, geography, demographics, and economy distinguish communities from one another, and how they each approach current challenges. In the workshop, Scott Gabriel Knowles (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) illustrated these dynamics through the history of St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, from the uprising of enslaved people in 1811 to environmental justice activism today. In the midst of these unique community stories and situations, many places share the same issues, even if they do not seem similar on the surface. A shared source of decisions, policies, and actions that other communities have taken for hazard risk reduction and climate adaptation, noting successes and challenges, could be an important resource for communities considering climate adaptation action. Applied
14 See, for example, Junod, A., C. Martín, R. Marx, and A. Rogin. 2021. Equitable investments in resilience: A review of benefit-cost analysis in federal flood mitigation infrastructure. Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/equitable-investments-resilience.
research can play a critical role in identifying, testing, and documenting potentially promising experiences and actions.
Applied research topics on the development of integrated local approaches to strengthening climate adaptation and resilience include the following:
- Identify components and participants for a holistic and integrated local approach to strengthening climate adaptation and resilience. How do communities best consider and integrate social, economic, and environmental impacts from a changing climate into effective outcomes? How does a community identify, welcome, and most effectively include stakeholders in an equitable decision-making process? Why is it important to integrate local values and political and economic considerations into decision support processes and what are the most effective ways to do so? How do local communities identify and act on climate adaptation and resilience needs that require regional collaboration? What successful models exist that do this and why are they successful?
- Institutionalize climate resilience considerations and actions in local community decision-making and investments. Where do opportunities exist, and what is required to integrate climate resilience into existing local systems and plans, such as local hazard mitigation and land use plans? How can funders and regulators encourage and enable integrated local actions that address multiple benefits, promote collaboration between programs, and avoid siloed efforts?
- 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? What are effective methods for communities to consider and prioritize equitable actions that address (1) long- and short-term risks and benefits, and (2) multiple hazard threats and infrastructure interdependencies?
- Co-address community inequities in all climate adaptation actions. What insights exist from social vulnerability information and climate justice groups to inform equitable climate action? How and why should communities identify, through data and engagement, differential impacts from current and expected climate threats and potential responses?
- Use transparent, inclusive local decision processes to evaluate alternatives, value, and impacts for locally relevant actions. What are existing tools and methods for assessing (quantitatively or qualitatively) the impacts and benefits, such as avoided damages, long-term impacts of climate action, or the price of inaction? What are best practices to communicate relative costs, benefits, and associated uncertainty to support decision-making? How do communities enable individuals and groups to understand their climate impacts and weigh these factors in decisions? What are alternatives to or innovations in BCA that assess multi-dimensional costs and benefits to inform hazard mitigation and climate adaptation investments?
An integrated system for converting data to information and then to action requires that the stakeholders trust the inputs to the system, the system itself, and each other. This trust’s characteristics and the processes that build and strengthen it are valuable objectives of future applied research.
Local community members generally have a more direct and tangible connection to current local risks and recent disasters than state and federal officials. Unless they trust the authority and credibility of the information being provided to them by the state and federal governments, they are unlikely to act on that information. When encountering new maps showing local hazards or risks, residents often check the risk level for places that they know well, such as their homes, to make their own judgments about the accuracy and usefulness of a map. This approach, however, may undermine confidence in data that assess future threats, such as climate-related hazards, where future risks may differ considerably from past experience. 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.
Research shows that trust in government at all levels has been falling, even at the local level.15 This issue can be particularly salient among marginalized communities who may be more reluctant than other people to go to the city council to seek answers to problems. FEMA and other governmental organizations typically work through traditional structures in communities, but not all community members participate in those structures. Applied research could look at how to close such gaps to strengthen trust and connections between local groups and local institutions.
Trust is also needed between different levels of government. For many threats, local communities rely on national and state data to understand and assess their risks. However, local jurisdictions are likely the most current and comprehensive source for hazard and risk information for hazards with recent or recurrent impacts. Enabling a local community to provide vetted data to a regional or national product could be disruptive, but developing a system to do so can build the trust needed on both sides for data to be both useful and used.
Building successful and sustainable programs also requires trust by all participants in (1) the processes for translating information into understandable impacts and opportunities, and (2) how decisions are made to address identified challenges. Trust can be built both through honest engagement processes and by addressing key community needs. Co-production approaches promote inclusive engagement and enhance trust in both inputs and processes. Successful engagement is often iterative, involving refining and improving inputs with various audiences while considering and producing multiple solutions. Tangible action on communal priorities can enhance trust in future work. Box 7 describes a Virginia program that pairs experts
15 Rainie, L., S. Keeter, and A. Perrin. 2019. Trust and distrust in America. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/07/22/trust-and-distrust-in-america.
in the state with local communities to identify and implement activities that strengthen local resilience to coastal flood hazards.
Transparency can be an element of trust, though the relationship between the two is complex. Transparency can be easier to measure than trust, which can make it more amenable to research. Clear documentation of data sources and analysis used in climate adaptation planning, in language accessible to all participants, can enhance comfort with and trust in the products and decisions that incorporate them. The research community has been undergoing a period of self-examination regarding transparency and reproducibility of research. This internal process has implications for future research and the relationships between researchers and other stakeholders in applying research results.
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. Box 8 describes an example in the case of Navajo Nation.16 As unique Sovereign Nations, tribal communities differ from non-tribal communities in the way that they govern
16 The Navajo Nation is a large, federally recognized tribe, which means that it is treated as a sovereign nation under the U.S. Constitution. However, the federal government has certain obligations via legal trust with respect to the tribes that must be honored. It is often the tension between the two, along with historical complexities, that challenge effective policy. See Hershey, T. B. 2019. Collaborating with sovereign tribal nations to legally prepare for public health emergencies. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 47(2_suppl):55-58.
themselves.17 They are also complex in their relationships as sovereigns, with some being federally recognized and having a recognized position with regard to the federal government. Non-federally recognized tribes, which may have state recognition or exist as independent communities, have nuanced relationships and decision matrices at those levels.
Researchers can play a role in building trust in communities. Researchers who collect insights, experiences, and lessons from community members and groups should always share their research results with those who contributed to ensure trust and engagement in future research. Researchers should learn to include key local players in the conversation. Trust develops when the entire community is engaged honestly and fully.
Applied research topics on building trust in data, information, processes, and partners for climate action include the following:
- Identify actions by public institutions (local to national level) 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? How can researchers and the private sector deliver more cooperative and effective climate adaptation outcomes that develop trusting relationships and identify trusted communicators?
- Identify characteristics and actions that strengthen trust in data and tools for climate understanding and analysis. Why do transparency of data sources and analysis methods, data limitations, and presentation formats affect trust in climate data and tools? How can local groups and governments build local capacity to access and evaluate actionable data and tools? Why are there trust, transparency, and equity concerns with widely used decision tools such as BCA? For community groups and stakeholders with limited bandwidth, what are some alternative means by which they can access expertise?
- Identify characteristics and actions that strengthen trust in local decisions and action on climate adaptation. What roles do co-development, co-production, access, and transparency play in trust among stakeholders and trust in local decisions and actions?
- Build trust in local climate decisions by co-developing intentional, inclusive decision-making processes. What are best practices for co-developing climate strategies with community members and leaders that have historically been under-served or marginalized? How and why does the history of a community or local groups contribute to existing and future vulnerability, trust, and participation in community processes?
17 Further details are available through the “Climate assessment and adaptation: Tribal resources” listed under “Selected References” at the end of this report.
While reaching consensus, the committee identified three common principles that extended across the three selected applied research topics: equity, community co-development and ownership, and community-level feasibility. These three were also common principles in the previous report on applied research to enhance community resilience through social capital and social connectedness. That report included a fourth common principle—trust—which has been elevated to an applied research topic in the context of strengthening climate resilience.
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. It encompasses many different indicators of health and well-being and many different population groups, including under-served, under-resourced, and historically or systemically marginalized communities. Research on inequity can include how damaging disparities arise and how they can be reduced. It covers not just the origins of disadvantage, but also the conditions that can promote positive health and life-affirming programs and practices. Opportunities for understanding and addressing existing inequities and disparate impacts from climate change are available when compiling and analyzing climate data, collectively setting community priorities, and making decisions and investments to adapt to climate change.
Community Co-Development and Ownership
In 2009, Elinor Ostrom received the Nobel Peace Prize for her research on shared natural resources in local communities. She demonstrated that such communities can develop approaches for managing and using common resources that are sustainable for the community and common resource management.18 While contrary to commonly held assumptions, her work demonstrates the possibilities for sustainability of limited resources through shared
18 Nobel Prize Outreach AB. n.d. Elinor Ostrom—facts. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economicsciences/2009/ostrom/facts.
responsibilities and actions. Climate change is expected to alter the context for many shared spaces and the resources that sustain them, making sustainable shared management and resource use simultaneously more difficult and more important.
Cities and towns were located and built in the places and shapes that they have in response to a myriad of constraints and opportunities. Location drivers often include geography, the economy, natural resources, demographics, trade, technology, and culture. People—residents, newcomers, developers, and politicians—make critical decisions throughout each phase of community growth and change. Under a changing climate, some of the same factors that defined earlier stages of development may be sources of future threats. Flooding from higher tides, storm surges, and riverine flooding may threaten development along coasts and rivers that originally provided critical transportation connections; changing precipitation and groundwater levels can challenge rural agricultural economies dependent on sufficient water for crops; and expanding wildfire zones and seasons endanger communities built within forested areas.
Addressing and adapting to such impacts may require significant changes in a community’s development patterns, infrastructure, and investments. Participation and co-development of alternatives and solutions by community members can help build critical ownership in the resulting decisions and actions. The need and benefit of broad, mutual engagement and ownership are heightened as the magnitude of the challenge and impact of those actions grow, as is the case with climate impacts.
Community partnerships are also at the center of co-development and ownership of actions to improve climate resilience. When undertaking applied research that can motivate local action to address climate impacts and build resilience, researchers must work with communities and subgroups within communities to derive valid evidence and reasonable alternatives. Such collaborative efforts can produce co-benefits for both communities and scientific knowledge that can then be transported to other communities. Communities see what is possible, while researchers can access new information and ideas and apply their science for the common good. Inspiring individual-level and local peer-to-peer engagement can also strengthen community ownership. Communities may feel greater ownership and participate more in collaborative processes when community members engage each other to join climate-related discussions and decisions (as opposed to external partners or researchers instigating or leading such connections).
As with strengthening and sustaining social capital and connectedness (the topic of the first report), 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.
Recognition of feasibility requirements and constraints informs the applied research topics identified in this report. Valid, accessible, and usable climate data and information are essential to making informed decisions and action on climate impacts. Data collection, analysis, and modeling efforts are often beyond the scope of local capabilities and budgets, requiring regional- or national-level platforms and programs. Such programs often do not include budgets or options for co-production of information with communities or incorporating local data into
broader datasets. Integrated approaches to understanding and addressing climate impacts depend on inclusive stakeholder engagement, which requires time and resources in design and implementation to facilitate understanding and participation by groups who bring different experiences and knowledge to the process.
While many communities are already experiencing climate change impacts and many more take seriously the coming impacts, pressing challenges that demand local attention often limit individual and communal attention to future threats. Communities responding to hazards and events with climate drivers, such as increased frequency of king-tide flooding or tropical cyclone activity, have immediate motivation and purpose for acting. In the workshop, Chad Berginnis (Association of State Floodplain Managers, Inc.) recognized the many challenges that compete for community resources, and that, outside of disaster situations, their attention and priorities are drawn to more immediate challenges. The hazard mitigation community, which has long faced similar challenges when advancing pre-disaster investment and action, can provide insight and experience to inform climate adaptation action.
Recognizing the challenge that impacts from a changing climate pose to communities across the country, now and in the future, the Committee on Applied Research Topics for Hazard Mitigation and Resilience focused on applied research needs and opportunities to better understand community-level needs in taking equitable action for climate adaptation. 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:
- Co-production of stakeholder-friendly data and useful information for local communities:
- Develop data baselines that are both useful and used by local communities to evaluate climate-related threats.
- Compile roadmaps and scenarios for local communities to identify, access, and evaluate appropriate data for understanding and addressing climate threats.
- Develop guidance for evaluating climate data and information and improving accessibility and usability of climate data tools.
- Mutually engage local stakeholders in producing, analyzing, and communicating information on climate-related hazards and impacts.
- Co-identify information needs and methods for assessing actual and expected climate impacts on people, communities, economies, and natural systems.
- Development of integrated local approaches for strengthening climate adaptation and resilience:
- Identify components and participants for a holistic and integrated approach to strengthening local climate adaptation and resilience.
- 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.
- Co-address community inequities in all climate adaptation actions.
- Use transparent, inclusive local decision-making processes to evaluate alternatives, benefits, and costs for locally relevant actions.
- Building trust in data, information, processes, and partners for climate action:
- Identify actions by public institutions (local to national level) that strengthen trust in policies and actions to address climate impacts.
- Identify characteristics and actions that strengthen trust in data and tools for climate understanding and analysis.
- Identify characteristics and actions that strengthen trust in local decisions and action on climate adaptation.
- Build trust in local climate decisions by co-developing intentional, inclusive decision-making processes.
This report provides examples of successful local efforts and challenges in illuminating these applied research topics and includes specific questions for consideration when undertaking this research. The committee’s view of applied research and researchers is broad, from researchers in academia to small community groups exploring and testing approaches for addressing climate impacts. The three primary applied research topics that the committee identified frame three important components of sustainable local climate adaptation decision and action—data, integrated approaches, and the building of trust in information, collaborators, decision-makers, and actions. Each of these three is also tightly connected, as holistic approaches to analysis and action require valid, accessible data that are applicable and trusted at the local level. Equitable, inclusive, and trusted processes and leaders are essential for accepted and sustainable decisions, which are particularly important for challenges such as climate impacts that do not have short-term solutions.
The committee also identified a set of common principles for consideration and implementation of these applied research topics. These include a commitment to equity and inclusion in both participation and aims of any applied research and outcomes; the importance of co-development and ownership by communities; and attention to the feasibility of community-led implementation for the success of activities and interventions.
The workshop presentations and discussions drew from the academic literature, a growing repository of data and tools on climate and related impacts, and important lessons and
challenges from active work on hazard mitigation and climate adaptation at the local level across the United States. Applied research is needed to collect and expand this knowledge to better inform hazard mitigation and resilience and motivate further local action on climate resilience.
The committee hopes to inspire researchers and communities with this report. Research findings from these topics should bolster and extend attention and activities that strengthen capacities for community resilience through inclusive work at the local, regional, national, and global levels for robust and equitable action.
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. This list was compiled primarily from presentations and discussions from the May 2021 workshop and the programs and interventions referenced in this report.
Climate assessment and adaptation: Resources and tools
- Environmental Protection Agency Climate Change Adaptation Resource Center: Planning for Climate Change Adaptation [https://www.epa.gov/arc-x/planning-climate-change-adaptation]
- NOAA [https://coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/training/climate-adaptation.html]
Climate assessment and adaptation: Examples and programs
- Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment: Local, impact-based climate assessments in the Pacific Islands [https://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/browse-allseries/pacific-islands-regional-climate-assessment-pirca]
- City of Charleston, South Carolina: All Hazards Vulnerability & Risk Assessment, with end-to-end implementation guided by NOAA’s Steps to Resilience framework for multihazard assessment [https://www.charleston-sc.gov/1975/All-Hazards-Vulnerability-Risk-Assessmen]
Climate assessment and adaptation: Sample tools
- Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program: Simple Planning Tool for Oklahoma Climate Hazards [http://www.southernclimate.org/documents/SPTOK.pdf] and other data tools [http://www.southernclimate.org/pages/data-tools]
- University of Washington Climate Impacts Group: Climate analysis tools for Seattle and the Pacific Northwest [https://cig.uw.edu/resources/analysis-tools]
- National Institute of Standards and Technology: Data collection instrument for assessing business disruption and recovery associated with extreme events [https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2020/11/data-collection-instruments-published-using-new-nist-data-collection]
Climate assessment and adaptation: Local adaptation programs and examples
- Groundwork USA: Climate Safe Neighborhoods [https://groundworkusa.org/focusareas/climate-safe-neighborhoods]
- Cool Neighborhoods NYC: A Comprehensive Approach to Keep Communities Safe in Extreme Heat [https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/orr/pdf/Cool_Neighborhoods_NYC_Report.pdf]
- West Philadelphia Landscape Project [https://wplp.net]
- University of Maryland Stormwater Infrastructure Resilience and Justice Lab [https://arch.umd.edu/sirj]
Climate assessment and adaptation: Tribal resources
- Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments (November 9, 2000) [https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-executive-order-13175-consultation-and-coordination-indian-tribal]
- 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/]
Climate assessment and adaptation: Community decision-making and trust
- van Valkengoed, A. M., and L. Steg. 2019. Meta-analyses of factors motivating climate change adaptation behaviour. Nature Climate Change 9:158-163.
- Fish & Wildlife Service National Conservation Training Center: Structured Decision Making [https://training.fws.gov/courses/programs/decision-analysis/structured-decisionmaking-overview.html]