• Implementing the Steps to Resilience | A Practitioner's Guide

Implementing the Steps to Resilience | A Practitioner's Guide

This guidebook offers a set of procedures to accompany each phase of the Climate Resilience Toolkit's Steps to Resilience.
  • Implementing the Steps to Resilience | A Practitioner's Guide

About this Course

The Practitioner's Guide is written for climate adaptation and resilience-building experts so that they may lend their own skills while building local capacity for climate resilience analysis, facilitation, and guidance. 

The Guide is intended for use by these "climate service practitioners" in two ways:

  1. during synchronous and asynchronous training on how to implement the Steps to Resilience
  2. as guidance for practitioners working with a community to implement the Steps to Resilience.

Climate adaptation is a multifaceted, diverse, and evolving practice, so a climate service practitioner’s knowledge and needs will also change over time. The Guide itself is intended to evolve and improve over time in order to best serve the needs of practitioners and the resilience community.

 

Implementing the Steps to Resilience | A Practitioner's Guide

Before You Begin (Foundations)

Instructor: 
Mark Wilbert & Matt Hutchins
6 Sections
45 minutes
Foundational information to consider before you begin your resilience journey.

Getting Started

Instructor: 
Matt Hutchins
6 Sections
25 minutes
Coordinate with the community champions to assemble a planning team and establish goals for the project.

Step 1: Understand Exposure

4 Sections
Exposure is the presence of people, assets, and ecosystems in places where they could be adversely affected by hazards. In this step, resilience builders are focused on evaluating community assets and their exposure to climate-related hazards. Evaluating community assets and their exposure to climate-related hazards involves confirming that all relevant potential climate impacts are being considered to allow for a comprehensive assessment of vulnerability and risk in the next step. This may require exploring multiple sources of information such as climate projections, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, community knowledge, observational data.

Step 2: Assess Vulnerability and Risks

6 Sections
Practitioners will now characterize risk based on the probability of identified hazards and the magnitude of potential loss. This step addresses processes and expected outcomes as well as increasing capacity across the community to conduct and understand vulnerability and risk assessments. By the end, the community will identify the people and community assets most vulnerable and at risk to climate-related hazards.

Step 3: Investigate Options

4 Sections
Having identified the greatest vulnerabilities and risks, the practitioner may consider how to focus subsequent planning on the most urgent needs. Options encompass objectives, strategies, and actions to build resilience to high priority vulnerabilities and risks. Resilience objectives should be consistent with the vision and goals of the community. Broad resilience objectives then provide a template for refining strategies and actions in subsequent stages.

Step 4: Prioritize and Plan

4 Sections
Practitioners will design an implementation plan for the strategies that are mostly likely to reduce vulnerability and risk. The goal of prioritization is to delineate achievable actions that address the highest priorities identified thus far and that have the support of community stakeholders. The goal of planning is to find synergy and cost savings within the resilience plan while eliminating unwanted, unintended consequences.

Step 5: Take Action

4 Sections
A resilience plan necessitates long-term capacity building. In addition to the technical capacity for any construction or project management activities, ongoing community engagement is crucial for buy-in, support, and measuring progress. Those measures of progress will assist with ongoing funding and finance efforts. Communicate project results with other communities who are engaged in similar efforts. Monitoring and evaluation are likewise essential or internal success and for building resilience capacity on a national level. Data collection will support iterative, persistent adaptation efforts. Focus data collection on ways to improve project goals and implementation strategies.

Implementing the Steps to Resilience | A Practitioner's Guide

Before You Begin (Foundations)

Instructor: 
Mark Wilbert & Matt Hutchins
6 Sections
45 minutes
Foundational information to consider before you begin your resilience journey.

Getting Started

Instructor: 
Matt Hutchins
6 Sections
25 minutes
Coordinate with the community champions to assemble a planning team and establish goals for the project.

Step 1: Understand Exposure

4 Sections
Exposure is the presence of people, assets, and ecosystems in places where they could be adversely affected by hazards. In this step, resilience builders are focused on evaluating community assets and their exposure to climate-related hazards. Evaluating community assets and their exposure to climate-related hazards involves confirming that all relevant potential climate impacts are being considered to allow for a comprehensive assessment of vulnerability and risk in the next step. This may require exploring multiple sources of information such as climate projections, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, community knowledge, observational data.

Step 2: Assess Vulnerability and Risks

6 Sections
Practitioners will now characterize risk based on the probability of identified hazards and the magnitude of potential loss. This step addresses processes and expected outcomes as well as increasing capacity across the community to conduct and understand vulnerability and risk assessments. By the end, the community will identify the people and community assets most vulnerable and at risk to climate-related hazards.

Step 3: Investigate Options

4 Sections
Having identified the greatest vulnerabilities and risks, the practitioner may consider how to focus subsequent planning on the most urgent needs. Options encompass objectives, strategies, and actions to build resilience to high priority vulnerabilities and risks. Resilience objectives should be consistent with the vision and goals of the community. Broad resilience objectives then provide a template for refining strategies and actions in subsequent stages.

Step 4: Prioritize and Plan

4 Sections
Practitioners will design an implementation plan for the strategies that are mostly likely to reduce vulnerability and risk. The goal of prioritization is to delineate achievable actions that address the highest priorities identified thus far and that have the support of community stakeholders. The goal of planning is to find synergy and cost savings within the resilience plan while eliminating unwanted, unintended consequences.

Step 5: Take Action

4 Sections
A resilience plan necessitates long-term capacity building. In addition to the technical capacity for any construction or project management activities, ongoing community engagement is crucial for buy-in, support, and measuring progress. Those measures of progress will assist with ongoing funding and finance efforts. Communicate project results with other communities who are engaged in similar efforts. Monitoring and evaluation are likewise essential or internal success and for building resilience capacity on a national level. Data collection will support iterative, persistent adaptation efforts. Focus data collection on ways to improve project goals and implementation strategies.