Coastal Community Climate Change Adaptation Framework Development and Implementation

Abstract

As the impacts of climate change become more severe, coastal communities are required to prepare plans for adaptation to the invasive environmental changes. A well-prepared adaptation plan can effectively reduce the overall risks of coastal communities. However, a plan is not the final solution for the climate change on coastal communities. How to take the plan into action and implement it in the local communities and find the opportunities for the enhanced preparedness and development of coastal communities is the primary consideration of this thesis research. Many organizations are engaged in developing adaptation tools and guidebooks. For completing their adaptation plans, communities need to develop clear, operational, action plans, and discover the opportunities to enhance the sustainability of coastal communities. To make coastal communities more sustainable in the face of the changing climate, the public’s attention and community participation is critical. The purpose of this study is to develop an adaptation framework and action plan process system for coastal communities and at the same time, provide the general public with an enhanced opportunity to contribute their understanding about what is being done for their costal community around them and how to react when an event happens. The research is applied to the coastal communities of Richmond County, Cape Breton, Canada as a case study. The result of the work develops an adaptation “Action Plan” website for Richmond County. The website features the development, application, and simulation of a mobile communication “Action plan” application designed and implemented with the action website along to provide coastal community with communication options that exploit the local community network and enhance the community’s capacity for climate change adaptation. The emergency response community mobile app and the accompanying website are models for other communities especially those that from the coastal communities in Canada and the Caribbean as part of the C-Change ICURA project to which this research is affiliated.