Hope and fear: narratives of state-level climate adaptation

Si la planificación es ampliamente considerado como la organización de la esperanza, la planificación del cambio climático, con su necesidad de anticipar lento y desastres rápida puede ser la gestión del miedo. Pero el miedo y la desesperación tienden a desalentar a los bienes públicos compartidos. Parece que los planes de adaptación al cambio climático debe ser un equilibrio cuidadoso entre el pesimismo realista / (cambio climático está en marcha y es probable que sea grave) y el optimismo (podemos hacer arreglos ahora que importará y crearemos mejores ciudades de todo). Empíricamente, ¿es así como los estados están interpretando el reto? Esta investigación examina un conjunto de planes de adaptación de EE.UU. a nivel estatal y se encuentra que hay prácticas que los planificadores pueden utilizar para equilibrar la esperanza y el miedo. Los planes pueden comenzar con una visión positiva que pone de relieve los diversos beneficios de la adaptación, y demostrar que las medidas de adaptación son capaces de reducir la magnitud o intensidad de los impactos. Pueden diferenciar entre la incertidumbre inherente a la ciencia y la desconfianza en la ciencia, y proporcionar los datos de monitoreo sobre impactos del cambio climático.If planning is widely considered the organization of hope, climate change planning with its need to anticipate slow and quick disasters may be the management of fear. But fear and despair tend to discourage shared public goods. It seems that climate adaptation plans should be a careful balance between the realistic/pessimistic (climate change is underway and is likely to be severe) and the optimistic (we can make arrangements now that will matter and will create better cities all around). Empirically, is this how states are interpreting the challenge? This research examines a set of US statelevel adaptation plans and finds there are practices that planners can use to balance hope and fear. Plans can begin with a positive vision that highlights the diverse benefits of adaptation, and demonstrate that adaptation actions are capable of reducing the magnitude or intensity of impacts. They can differentiate between the uncertainty inherent in the science and distrust in science, and provide for monitoring data on climate change impacts. We contend that building narratives that create a message of hope and tying to long-established values for planning will help to make adaptation more likely to be implemented.Eje 4: Construir las nuevas agendas socio-ambientales. Orientar y gestionar las transiciones y transformaciones urbanas.Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanism

Pathways to Coastal Resiliency: the Adaptive Gradients Framework

Current and future climate-related coastal impacts such as catastrophic and repetitive flooding, hurricane intensity, and sea level rise necessitate a new approach to developing and managing coastal infrastructure. Traditional “hard” or “grey” engineering solutions are proving both expensive and inflexible in the face of a rapidly changing coastal environment. Hybrid solutions that incorporate natural, nature-based, structural, and non-structural features may better achieve a broad set of goals such as ecological enhancement, long-term adaptation, and social benefits, but broad consideration and uptake of these approaches has been slow. One barrier to the widespread implementation of hybrid solutions is the lack of a relatively quick but holistic evaluation framework that places these broader environmental and societal goals on equal footing with the more traditional goal of exposure reduction. To respond to this need, the Adaptive Gradients Framework was developed and pilot-tested as a qualitative, flexible, and collaborative process guide for organizations to understand, evaluate, and potentially select more diverse kinds of infrastructural responses. These responses would ideally include natural, nature-based, and regulatory/cultural approaches, as well as hybrid designs combining multiple approaches. It enables rapid expert review of project designs based on eight metrics called “gradients”, which include exposure reduction, cost efficiency, institutional capacity, ecological enhancement, adaptation over time, greenhouse gas reduction, participatory process, and social benefits. The framework was conceptualized and developed in three phases: relevant factors and barriers were collected from practitioners and experts by survey; these factors were ranked by importance and used to develop the initial framework; several case studies were iteratively evaluated using this technique; and the framework was finalized for implementation. The article presents the framework and a pilot test of its application, along with resources that would enable wider application of the framework by practitioners and theorists

Greenways for Climate Adaptation: Avoiding the ‘Green Paradox’ while Improving Urban Resiliency

Greenway planning and design is an important approach to climate adaptation in urban areas. In this paper we bring together literature on green gentrification, climate adaptation, and equity in an early exploration of equity issues specific to urban greenways for climate adaptation (‘adaptation-greenways’). Similar to environmental risks and green space access, impacts of climate change are distributed unevenly across urban space. Climate-vulnerable communities are often minority- and lower-income neighborhoods. Greenways can redress existing inequities (‘pre-equity issues’) by providing green space access and climate adaptation benefits in vulnerable communities. Recent projects demonstrate that greenways, while redressing existing inequities, can introduce new inequities (‘post-equity issues’) at the same time. This is the ‘green paradox’, where poor initial site conditions underlying existing inequities in minority- and lower-income neighborhoods can give rise to intense price and development pressure when these areas are revitalized by urban greening. As a consequence, greenways may lead to ‘green gentrification’ when urban greening creates increased property values and risk of exclusion and displacement. While less explored to date, urban greenways for climate adaptation may yield similar outcomes when improved resilience brings increases in property value, the benefit of which does not accrue to existing residents. The very neighborhoods that need resiliency investment to redress past environmental harms and prevent increased vulnerability are the same ones whose residents may be concerned about being priced out as improvements increase the market value of the newly-safer properties. Green-gentrification literature provides preliminary suggestions of practical steps that can be taken to address the ‘green paradox’. We assess whether the same strategies are likely to apply when greenways are planned for climate adaptation. This is worth investigating, because adaptation-greenways may require differences in the needs of design. We conclude with a summary of considerations for future adaptation-greenway planning and design

Hope and fear: narratives of state-level climate adaptation

Si la planificación es ampliamente considerado como la organización de la esperanza, la planificación del cambio climático, con su necesidad de anticipar lento y desastres rápida puede ser la gestión del miedo. Pero el miedo y la desesperación tienden a desalentar a los bienes públicos compartidos. Parece que los planes de adaptación al cambio climático debe ser un equilibrio cuidadoso entre el pesimismo realista / (cambio climático está en marcha y es probable que sea grave) y el optimismo (podemos hacer arreglos ahora que importará y crearemos mejores ciudades de todo). Empíricamente, ¿es así como los estados están interpretando el reto? Esta investigación examina un conjunto de planes de adaptación de EE.UU. a nivel estatal y se encuentra que hay prácticas que los planificadores pueden utilizar para equilibrar la esperanza y el miedo. Los planes pueden comenzar con una visión positiva que pone de relieve los diversos beneficios de la adaptación, y demostrar que las medidas de adaptación son capaces de reducir la magnitud o intensidad de los impactos. Pueden diferenciar entre la incertidumbre inherente a la ciencia y la desconfianza en la ciencia, y proporcionar los datos de monitoreo sobre impactos del cambio climático.If planning is widely considered the organization of hope, climate change planning with its need to anticipate slow and quick disasters may be the management of fear. But fear and despair tend to discourage shared public goods. It seems that climate adaptation plans should be a careful balance between the realistic/pessimistic (climate change is underway and is likely to be severe) and the optimistic (we can make arrangements now that will matter and will create better cities all around). Empirically, is this how states are interpreting the challenge? This research examines a set of US statelevel adaptation plans and finds there are practices that planners can use to balance hope and fear. Plans can begin with a positive vision that highlights the diverse benefits of adaptation, and demonstrate that adaptation actions are capable of reducing the magnitude or intensity of impacts. They can differentiate between the uncertainty inherent in the science and distrust in science, and provide for monitoring data on climate change impacts. We contend that building narratives that create a message of hope and tying to long-established values for planning will help to make adaptation more likely to be implemented.Eje 4: Construir las nuevas agendas socio-ambientales. Orientar y gestionar las transiciones y transformaciones urbanas.Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanism

Teaching across disciplines: a case study of a project-based short course to teach holistic coastal adaptation design

Climate change has led to the need for innovation in resilient infrastructure and the social policies which will support those. This requires greater interdisciplinary interactions and knowledge building among emerging professionals. This paper presents a case study of a pilot short course intended to immerse graduate students in the design of resilient infrastructure using place-based and interdisciplinary active team learning. This course helps graduate students bridge the gap between research and practice on the social science and engineering of resilient infrastructure for coastal adaptation. The intellectual framework for the course (the Adaptive Gradients Framework) provides a holistic evaluation of adaptation design proposals and was used to recognize the complexity of social, ecological and engineering aspects and varied social benefits. The course provides a model to move outside rigid boundaries of institutions and disciplines to begin to build, in both students and instructors, the ability to work more effectively on complex social-ecological-engineering problems. Finally, this paper presents a summary of lessons learned from this pilot short course

Pathways to Coastal Resiliency: The Adaptive Gradients Framework

Current and future climate-related coastal impacts such as catastrophic and repetitive flooding, hurricane intensity, and sea level rise necessitate a new approach to developing and managing coastal infrastructure. Traditional “hard” or “grey” engineering solutions are proving both expensive and inflexible in the face of a rapidly changing coastal environment. Hybrid solutions that incorporate natural, nature-based, structural, and non-structural features may better achieve a broad set of goals such as ecological enhancement, long-term adaptation, and social benefits, but broad consideration and uptake of these approaches has been slow. One barrier to the widespread implementation of hybrid solutions is the lack of a relatively quick but holistic evaluation framework that places these broader environmental and societal goals on equal footing with the more traditional goal of exposure reduction. To respond to this need, the Adaptive Gradients Framework was developed and pilot-tested as a qualitative, flexible, and collaborative process guide for organizations to understand, evaluate, and potentially select more diverse kinds of infrastructural responses. These responses would ideally include natural, nature-based, and regulatory/cultural approaches, as well as hybrid designs combining multiple approaches. It enables rapid expert review of project designs based on eight metrics called “gradients”, which include exposure reduction, cost efficiency, institutional capacity, ecological enhancement, adaptation over time, greenhouse gas reduction, participatory process, and social benefits. The framework was conceptualized and developed in three phases: relevant factors and barriers were collected from practitioners and experts by survey; these factors were ranked by importance and used to develop the initial framework; several case studies were iteratively evaluated using this technique; and the framework was finalized for implementation. The article presents the framework and a pilot test of its application, along with resources that would enable wider application of the framework by practitioners and theorists

Planning for Sustainability in Small Municipalities: The Influence of Interest Groups, Growth Patterns, and Institutional Characteristics

How and why small municipalities promote sustainability through planning efforts is poorly understood. We analyzed ordinances in 451 Maine municipalities and tested theories of policy adoption using regression analysis.We found that smaller communities do adopt programs that contribute to sustainability relevant to their scale and context. In line with the political market theory, we found that municipalities with strong environmental interests, higher growth, and more formal governments were more likely to adopt these policies. Consideration of context and capacity in planning for sustainability will help planners better identify and benefit from collaboration, training, and outreach opportunities

Regional Conservation Partnerships in New England

Across New England, a new model of regional collaboration is increasingly being used by land conservation trusts, watershed associations, state agencies and others. Regional conservation partnerships (RCPs) serve multiple purposes, such as coordinating among the various active groups in the region and allowing them to leverage funding and staff capacity. However, their essential missions are the same—protect more land from development. We use interviews, geographic information systems (GIS), and statistical analysis on 20 case studies to document RCP growth and characteristics and to analyze which attributes most contribute to their ability to conserve land. Along with well-known factors of organizational development, we find that the RCPs that match the size of the partnership region with the territory and capacity of the host partner organization are better able to achieve measurable conservation gains

Do Bylaws Matter? Evaluating Conservation Subdivision Design

This research investigates what public and private purposes are being achieved in projects permitted as conservation or open space subdivisions. An expert panel evaluated nine conservation subdivision designs (CSD), and found that CSDs overall provide more ecologically functional designs than would occur under traditional subdivision layout. In particular, open space goals tend to be well-achieved, while other aspects such as creativity, housing diversity, and other public goods are less satisfactory. However, evidence suggests that underlying socioeconomic and planning board issues are more explanatory in overall quality of projects than the specific contents of individual CSD bylaws. Results of related research in other regions indicate that CSDs tend to occur in the direct path of development pressure, tend to increase rural sprawl, and occur under a wide spectrum of bylaws. The study finds that CSD outcomes could be improved through support for well-trained and empowered planning boards. Improvements in bylaws are recommended, including stronger design quality components, connection of open space to form habitat corridors, and development of clear evaluation rubric(s) that could help planning boards better negotiate for higher quality projects