Assessing vulnerabilities to climate related stressors in Orange Beach, Alabama

Abstract

1. Convene a one day workshop with City of Orange Beach leaders (members of the Planning Commission, Citizen’s Advisory Council, and City Council) to complete the Vulnerability-Consequence Adaptation Planning Scenarios (VCAPS) tool. 
2. Prioritize management actions identified in the VCAPS workshop and determine which item(s) can be addressed with the existing funds of the city coupled with Sea Grant support. This prioritization will be done via the VCAPS diagramming tool using VUE freeware. 
3. Encourage joint fact finding and collaboration with adjacent communities by inviting them to participate in the VCAPS process. (i.e., Perdido Beach and Escambia County) 
4. Implement at least one management action identified in the VCAPS process that will assist the City of Orange Beach in adapting to future climate conditions.

Methodology

With the assistance of the Coastal Storms Outreach Coordinator, the City of Orange Beach will develop an invitation list for the VCAPS workshop, send invitations, develop the workshop agenda, and handle workshop logistics. During the workshop, the VUE freeware (http://vue.tufts.edu/index.cfm) program will be used to create a diagram to visually document the group’s discussion in real time. The goal of the diagram is to (1) effectively gather and summarize the wealth of information, knowledge, and experience that exists within the community, (2) stimulate thinking and conversation about how to manage consequences by taking upstream or downstream actions, and (3) aid in future decision making. After the workshop, a summary of the session and diagram will be provided to the city. The prioritized action items will then be discussed in a future meeting and a decision will be made regarding which to address with available funds. The city will work with the CSP Coordinator to implement at least one of the recommended actions to increase community resilience to future climate conditions. This action could include: language in the hazard mitigation plan to include sea level change or increased precipitation; GIS mapping layers that display future climate scenarios; public outreach campaign to disseminate information to residents regarding climate related hazards; or another similar action as identified in the VCAPS process.

Rationale

Many coastal management decisions about adapting to climate change are made at the local level. To increase local resilience to climate change, community planners and municipal leaders must understand how climate impacts are related to differences in vulnerability, how municipal actions can ameliorate or exacerbate impacts (e.g., construction of protective seawalls and revetments), and how management decisions interact. The Vulnerability and Consequences Adaptation Planning Scenarios (VCAPS) process can be used to increase the shared understanding of climate-related impacts on coastal communities between local officials, municipal staff, and other stakeholders. The VCAPS process couples structured group discussion with an interactive computer-based diagramming program to help local officials, local staff, and stakeholders collectively design qualitative scenarios that depict potential impacts of climate stressors on their communities and suggest collective and individual response options. This promotes reaching efficient closure on different group discussion points. It highlights vulnerabilities and management interventions that can be taken to adapt to or mitigate consequences. It also creates a record of a shared understanding of the local adaptation issue.