We worked as a sub-consultant to George Mason University for this project with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Virginia Sea Grant to develop a toolkit to help increase accessibility of sea level rise and inundation projections and gauge community perspectives on potential adaptation strategies.

Our interdisciplinary, integrated resilience team of coastal scientists and flood hazard mitigation specialists led the development of a flexible methodology to assess potential damages due to episodic flood losses coupled with sea level rise over time. Our team also created an interactive internet-based geospatial viewer, which shares the technical assessment results from the parcel to the county level. An online community survey and detailed instructions on implementing deliberative polling events rounded out the toolkit, which could be implemented across the mid-Atlantic and U.S. as a component of a climate change adaptation decision-making framework.

When piloted in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, the toolkit products were used to facilitate public deliberation sessions to increase awareness of sea level rise risks and explore policy and design options. The final report presented areas of heightened vulnerability along with potential climate adaptation strategies that had the greatest stakeholder and community support.