This session will introduce and demonstrate the use of ASERT (Action-Oriented Stakeholder Engagement for a Resilient Tomorrow) tools. The ASERT framework is a participatory approach designed to help policymakers, planners, community leaders, and others in broad stakeholder engagement (beyond simple public participation) that emphasizes action-oriented resilient responses such as to flooding and sea level rise. The ASERT framework was piloted and evaluated as part of the Hampton Roads Intergovernmental Pilot Project in 2016 and implemented in the City of Virginia Beach as part of their NOAA-funded sea level rise adaptation resilience strategy development in winter 2017/18.

The ASERT framework can be operationalized via several stakeholder and facilitation efforts. These can include provision of information in an interactive format, participatory mapping, in-depth qualitative discussion, and prioritization activities such as using audience response system (ARS) clickers or policy stickers.

We will present the tool and the social science data gathered using the tool in Virginia Beach. We will highlight how the City of Virginia Beach used both the process and the data as part of their resilience planning.

Government agencies, academic institutions, and nonprofits develop adaptation tools without adequately considering the capacity, needs, and contexts of end users at the local government level. Wetlands Watch, working with local governments for over a dozen years, has developed a strategic approach for bridging this gap, building the “last mile” in the adaption ecosystem. Just as commercial IT operations focus on the “last mile,” the link between their backbone servers and the customer, a similar challenge faces the climate adaptation community. The challenge is developing the “last mile” in the adaptation ecosystem to deliver the tools, models, studies, viewers, and critical information to the end user/decision maker in a form that they can use, at a time when they need it.

Wetlands Watch’s dozen years of sea level rise adaptation work at the local government level has resulted in a system of information delivery designed to provide adaptation resources to decision makers in local contexts that maximize implementation actions. We conduct needs assessments of local decision makers to better focus resources on adaptation challenges and engage in partnerships with upstream information providers. We have developed our own locality specific products (Virginia Locality Adaptation Guide), and technologies (Sea Level Rise Smart Phone App). We have provided local staff with leverage points for action (locality-specific FEMA program consultation), developed a system to bring academic resources to address local government needs (Collaboratory), and leveraged the private sector (Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional training and certification program).