Envisioning the Possible: Developing Multi-Jurisdictional Geospatial Databases and Conceptual Designs to Advance Regional Resilience

Abstract

Communities across the globe are grappling with identifying pathways to increase resilience to natural hazards due to increased frequency and intensity of hazards caused by climatic change. Regional collaboration among communities can be challenging but when successful, can leverage limited resources to achieve maximum benefit. The coastal area of the state of Connecticut, USA, encompasses 24 towns (approx. 45% of state’s population) and was hard-hit during both Tropical Storm Irene (approx. $200M damages) and Sandy (approx. $360M damages). To envision and advance a resilient path forward, The Nature Conservancy engaged with core regional partners to develop regional frameworks for resilience. An essential component of these frameworks included a geospatial database populated with resiliencebuilding projects, hosted on a public-facing website. This resource allows communities and individuals to visualize a suite of resilience-based projects across the entire region and promotes multi-jurisdictional and cross-organization collaboration and partnership, with implications for regional planning, environmental efforts, and funding opportunities. The geospatial database development identified numerous natural infrastructure projects that reduced risk to infrastructure, strengthened ecosystems, and enhanced a public amenity (i.e. “resilient triple bottom line”); however, many of these projects employed approaches that are still unfamiliar to the public, municipal officials, regulators, and practitioners. Conceptual designs were developed to both provide visualization of nonconventional alternatives and assist with obtaining funding for full design and construction of high-priority projects. This regional resilience framework approach has been implemented across the Connecticut coast, and the process can be readily adapted in other communities and scaled to the resources available to advance resilience both locally and regionally, in the USA, and internationally.