Climate Adaptation Planning

front porch view while I work

There will be pages and pages of this stuff as my research team finalizes our grant deliverables to our community partner and granting agency. However, today I want to share a little of the introductory material and tone. Final products will leverage the last two years of research and citizen-engagement performed by the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission (MPPDC) and its constituent county planning staff. Funded research conducted by Virginia Tech Urban Affairs and Planning faculty and graduate students builds upon the momentum of MPPDC work to produce a survey of best practices among various coastal communities. The resulting portfolio of adaptation planning strategies will include 1) practices we the authors find most suitable for our study area, as well as 2) a decision-matrix of all relevant best practices, designed specifically for the Middle Peninsula to engage citizen participants. The matrix is intended to place broad scholarly research in the hands of citizens who know their community best, empowering them to choose among recommendations to which they might not have otherwise been exposed. Here is an excerpt of my writing introducing climate adaptation planning to the reader:

Communities at every echelon of government and in every geographic sector are working to answer these questions: What planning strategies work to help communities adapt to the new geological and ecological disposition of our future planet? How does a local government best safeguard the future health, welfare and public safety of its citizens?  Such questions are even more pronounced for coastal communities, who face an extensive set of threats and hazards, including: hurricanes, coastal erosion, wetland deprivation, and floods. In addition, as the full effects of climate change become manifest, coastal communities will face a range of increasingly severe challenges. In response to their respective vulnerabilities, many localities have taken anticipatory adaptive actions to increase resilience to potential coastal hazards. All coastal communities stand to benefit by incorporating adaptation-oriented planning practices into their existing system of governance.  Each unique coastal community must employ a combination of best adaptation practices from other communities and stakeholder-empowered decision making to strengthen climate adaptation planning within its jurisdiction.