Engaging Communities at the Local Level: Lessons from the NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnerships Network

Many communities at the local level in the U.S. and abroad are grappling with how to plan for and adapt to ever more frequent climate extremes as well as persistent long-term changes, whether it is from the impacts of wildfire, inland and coastal flooding, more extreme heat, or drought conditions. While this happening, local, state and federal agencies are providing resources for adaptation at the state and local levels. In the past two years along, the U.S. federal government has sent out billions of dollars from many of its agencies through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Some of the dollars are to support community climate adaptation planning and implementation.

This presentation will focus on approaches that federal funders and their supported researchers have undertaken recently to engage with and build the capacity of frontline communities in the face of these extremes and longer-term trends and with the goal of more effectively accessing and implementing federal and state resources.

Lessons will be drawn from projects that the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) Climate Adaptation Partnerships (CAP) program has supported targeted at how most effectively to fund and engage with community-based organizations so that they can work with the research community to advance equitable adaptation in their area. In the last couple of years, CAP has placed increased emphasis on centering equity in its projects with local governments, community organizations and tribal governments in rural and urban areas across the U.S. For the CAP network, ensuring equity means paying particular attention to populations most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which are often low-income communities, historically marginalized communities, indigenous and tribal communities, those already overburdened by pollution, those who lack economic or social opportunity, and people facing disenfranchisement. How to support these communities is not always straightforward. They have different needs, constraints, and capacity to engage with scientists.

This presentation will also draw on findings from a recently completed NSF-sponsored project, “EAGER: Equity in Scientific Co-production Processes: Creation of a Framework.” The project explored characteristics of research-engagement efforts that center equity in a co-production framing. The research drew from the perspectives of several federal agencies, scientists working on climate adaptation, non-profits, tribal representatives, and other local organizations. The findings highlighted the importance of pathways of contributing knowledge, varying degrees of power balances and imbalances, and the perspectives of different types of players (e.g., local decision makers, researchers, and federal funders).

Specific examples of these approaches taken to engage with communities grappling with climate and stormwater management, heat and public health preparedness, flooding on housing and small businesses will be highlighted.