Coastal Resilience Scorecard
Design
By Dr Peter Williams chairs ARISE-US. His background includes 30 years in IBM, where he became an IBM Distinguished Engineer, and extensive experience in creating DRR tools such as the UN City Disaster Resilience Scorecard and its many offshoots, now used by hundreds of cities (and countries) globally. His PhD is in Politics.
ARISE-US and Waterfront Alliance are partnering to create a scorecard to allow coastal cities to assess their resilience to sea level rise, storms and storm surge, and tsunamis.
According to estimates, over 410 million people (World Economic Forum) and 20% of the world's GDP (S&P) will be at risk by 2100 due to sea level rise and the flooding that will bring with it. Coastal storms and storm surge, salt-water intrusion into aquifers, and coastal erosion will add to these numbers. Whatever course the world takes with reducing greenhouse gasses (GHGs), some proportion of the adverse impact is already "baked in" to our future; the risk of seismically-driven tsunamis of course remains a constant. Unsurprisingly, with the effects already being felt, the subject of coastal resilience is attracting major attention globally.
Coastal resilience, like that in any milieu, is a "system-of-systems" problem. Building or increasing it in any given area requires intervening in multiple natural, physical, economic, government, political, social and cultural systems, and managing the relationships between these. The first step in identifying, prioritizing and delivering those interventions is a holistic understanding of the current position. What are the actual risks faced, what is thereby in harm's way, and how complete - on multiple dimensions - are the preparations to deal with it, whether by response, mitigation or adaptation?
ARISE-US has considerable experience in creating tools (scorecards) to help communities assess the strengths and weaknesses of their current position, and framing the plans that will create the resilience that is required. The UN DRR's City Disaster Resilience Scorecard and its various addenda have now been used by many hundreds of cities globally - we authored the scorecard and many of the addenda. Waterfront Alliance has a stellar (and growing) reputation for ecologically sound, inclusively designed, resilient waterfront spaces, and are the authors of the Waterfront Excellence Design Guidelines (WEDG), with several hundred accredited practitioners across the US and beyond. We anticipate that combining our expertise will allow us to create a truly holistic tool that sets out all the issues that need to be considered.
There are already coastal resilience standards - why do we need another one? All of our scorecards are based on the Sendai Framework concept of the Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient, and we have found over the years that this results in a broader and more complete treatment of the issues. The Ten Essentials are:
1. Organize for Disaster Resilience - stakeholder identification and inclusion, and governance structures, processes and procedures;
2. Identify, Understand and Use Current and Future Risk Scenarios - understanding of what might happen.
3. Strengthen Financial Capacity for resilience - funding, donations, budgets, incentives and co-benefits.
4. Pursue Resilient Urban Development and Design - in essence, land use and building codes - and whether these are enforced.
5. Safeguard Natural Buffers - understanding which ecosystem services may be making you more resilient, protecting these and enhancing them over time.
6. Strengthen Institutional Capacity for Resilience - making sure you have access to the data and skills needed, and that the data is being shared as needed.
7. Understand and Strengthen Societal Capacity for Resilience - community engagement and understanding of the roles that everyone has to play.
8. Increase Infrastructure Resilience - protecting and hardening physical; systems.
9. Ensure Effective Disaster Response - event response coordination and procedures.
10. Expedite recovery and Build Back Better - in essence, how much of any required post event recovery, and social and economic "reboot" can be planned in advance? (Hint - it's much more than most people - and professionals - realize!)
If you are already using another instrument then you should carry on doing so, while using the Scorecard we plan to produce to fill in any gaps.
We intend to produce the first draft of the scorecard by the end of 2024. If you would like to pilot it in your community, please contact Eugene Montoya for Waterfront Alliance, and Peter Williams or Cheryl Hapke for ARISE-US.
