Recipes for Resilient Regional Opportunity Areas

Keywords: GIS; participatory GIS; climate change; adaptation; regional planning
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 10

Abstract

As the assessment of climate change impacts evolves through improved synthesis of spatial data and modeling approaches, local awareness increases, and communities are better equipped to incorporate adaptation strategies into planning goals such as conservation and development. These strategies may be part of comprehensive or Natural Hazard Mitigation Plans. They may also stand as individual climate planning processes. Regardless of method, to plan for climate change, communities will need to address competing or complementary concerns from economic development, transportation, housing, conservation, and climate vulnerabilities.

During the Resilient Connecticut project, the Connecticut Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation (UConn CIRCA) piloted a spatial assessment technique to relate potential climate risks with local and regional priorities to develop resilient Regional Opportunity Areas (ROARs). These ROARS address social and climate vulnerabilities by either co-locating priorities identified from other well-established planning processes or identifying existing planning systems that amplify vulnerability. The methodology uses two climate tools from CIRCA (Climate Change Vulnerability Index or CCVI and Zones of Shared Risks (ZSR) and regionally collected GIS data on affordable housing, state-legislated transit-oriented development locations, transportation routes, emergency disaster and cooling shelters, water and wastewater infrastructure, and ecological communities to identify multi-scale (local to regional) ROARs. Across two counties, sixty-three ROARs were identified. In this presentation, we will review the collaborative design process that identified the two-step vulnerability-planning process, the GIS opportunities/limitations we experienced, and the public engagement process that followed. The ROARs are expected to influence a runway of potential resilience projects to direct future funding.