New funding for the Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative supports work in flooding, wildfire smoke

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The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative is starting two exciting new projects this year that will support adaptation to flooding and wildfire smoke, thanks to funding from NOAA and the Department of Commerce. These projects are: 

Stories as science: Integrating lived experience and community knowledge into actionable adaptation science in Pacific Northwest and Pacific Islands regions. This project brings together researchers and storytellers from the Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative, the Pacific Research on Island Solutions for Adaptation program and Tikkun Olam Productions. A recent story from the Resilience Collaborative highlights how this project aims to elevate the experiences of frontline communities while testing the oral history process as a novel method for co-producing science and guiding adaptation.

Understanding the role of social infrastructure in extreme heat and wildfire smoke vulnerability mitigation: A regional comparison in the West and Pacific Northwest regions. This project brings together researchers from the Desert Research Institute and the Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative.

Both projects are supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which is awarding $3.9 million over four years to existing NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnerships teams (formerly known as Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments). The eight projects receiving this funding will test, scale up and transfer knowledge to build national adaptation to floods and wildfires across eight different projects.

NCRC and partners to pilot groundbreaking co-production method

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Building resilience to climate change requires many diverse areas of expertise, experiences and knowledge. Though they have historically been marginalized from climate preparedness efforts, people of color, Indigenous peoples, people with lower incomes and people whose lives depend on natural resources — known collectively as “frontline communities” — have innovative solutions for building resilience to climate change impacts. 

The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative and partners are piloting a groundbreaking method for elevating first-hand experiences and visions of climate resilience and solutions, with the goal of incorporating community knowledge into efforts to prepare for climate impacts. Partnering with the documentary storytelling organization Tikkun Olam Productions and the Pacific Research on Island Solutions for Adaptation program, a trans-disciplinary research team will record the oral histories of frontline communities facing flooding and other climate change impacts. Oral history is a method of documenting first-hand experiences, memories and reflections through in-depth conversation and deep listening. The team will incorporate these stories into climate adaptation efforts, testing the oral history process as a novel method for co-producing science and guiding adaptation. The project is funded by a grant from the NOAA Climate Program Office. 

Dr. Rishi Sugla, a lead scientist at the Climate Impacts Group, is drawing on his expertise in community organizing, documentary filmmaking and the natural sciences to lead this project. “Storytelling approaches, like oral histories and documentary film, provide rich context that can inform place-based and community-led solutions to the most pressing problems facing frontline communities” he says. “This work is about creating just climate futures that center the knowledge and experiences of communities first and foremost. At the same time, we want to make sure we are co-generating resources that build capacity and power in our community partners along the way, through storytelling work oriented around our partner’s expressed needs. We are excited that NOAA sees the potential of multimedia storytelling as part of a climate justice focused adaptation practice. ” 

Over the course of three years, the project team will work with Indigenous communities in Washington and Hawai’i that are at increased risk of flooding due to various social, economic and political stressors. The team of researchers and storytellers will hold community sessions to co-create a production guide, facilitate 10 community members’ oral histories, edit the oral histories to highlight collective narratives and work with researchers to analyze the oral histories for relevant data for adaptation projects. The project is “an innovative and human-centered approach to accelerating climate adaptation,”  Dr. Victoria Keener, co-lead principal investigator from the Pacific Research on Islands Solutions for Adaptation Program, says. “We need more than data to communicate the impacts of climate change in frontline communities, and the strong history of storytelling in the Pacific Islands can help inform and implement needed changes,” she says. Dr. Keener and Dr. Guillaume Mauger of the Climate Impacts Group are co-Principal Investigators on the project. Maggie Lemere and Marielle Olentine, both of Tikkun Olam Productions, will lead filming and production of the oral histories and support the creation of community design sessions. 

Marielle Olentine, a storyteller and producer at Tikkun Olam, describes the production company as “a team of regenerative storytelling practitioners.” “Our team believes in the power of collective narratives to inform and reinforce the resilience of communities on the frontlines of climate change. This work centers and amplifies the legitimacy and value of the lived experiences of those that have been inhabiting these landscapes for generations,” she says. “Inviting living experts into the design process through community design sessions is a core part of what makes this research context-specific and will ideally allow these oral histories to interweave with scientific approaches to disaster response and climate adaptation in a way that promotes community autonomy and buy-in. We’re grateful to those who are already doing this work and look forward to growing the depth of knowledge in this area through NOAA’s support.” 

The trans-disciplinary team will start developing the project this fall, and plan to hold their first community meeting in Washington early this spring.  

UW Climate Impacts Group and partner organizations launch the Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative 

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The UW Climate Impacts Group, along with nine community, nonprofit, and university partners, is launching a program of community-led, justice-oriented climate adaptation work across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative will be founded with a five-year, $5.6 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The program will be one of eleven across the country funded through NOAA’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program.

The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative will advance efforts to adapt to climate change in frontline communities — communities that have been excluded from spaces of power and who are disproportionately facing the impacts of climate change.

The program will be led by Climate Impacts Group Director Amy Snover, with several community members and university partners steering the direction of the Collaborative as members of the Leadership Team. The Leadership Team will include Snover along with Aurora Martin, co-executive director of Front and Centered; Don Sampson, climate change program director of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians; Jennifer Allen, associate professor and senior fellow of the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University and Russell Callender, director of Washington Sea Grant.

“Many incredible organizations across Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington are joining with the UW Climate Impacts Group to work toward a future where all people and communities can thrive,” Snover said. “It is my hope that the Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative will push the climate adaptation field toward equity and justice. I am proud that the Climate Impacts Group is helping to steward this shift, guided by the leadership of frontline communities, and I am honored by the trust and collaboration from these community partners.”

Projects led by the Collaborative will build climate resilience in rural communities and coastal tribal communities, while leveraging the successes from these projects to inform policy and work in other regions. The Collaborative is innovative in the climate adaptation sciences and services fields for its community engagement model; explicit focus on community priorities, equity and justice; and for centering the voices of frontline communities in its effort.

“This Collaborative aligns with Front and Centered’s approach which is data driven and follows the leadership, knowledge, and expertise of frontline communities disproportionately impacted by climate and environmental change,” Aurora Martin said. “We are excited to work with our partners to center equity — reducing uneven barriers to participation and climate preparedness and resilience — so that our communities and future generations can thrive.”

In the first year of the Resilience Collaborative, leadership and partners working in coastal tribal communities will focus on assessing the state of climate readiness among Northwest coastal tribes. From there, they will identify steps to accelerate tribal adaptation efforts. Members of the Collaborative will also convene large-group discussions focused on implementation.

“The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians is excited to join the UW and the other Resilience Collaborative partners on this effort,” Don Sampson said. “We understand the importance of working together to increase our impact and this project has the potential for improving tribal climate resilience, which is a priority for ATNI’s Climate Change program.”

Leaders and partners working in rural communities will study how rural values are reflected in climate adaptation priorities, the potential consequences of climate change for rural communities in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and economic strategies for implementing climate action. Collaborative members will work with farmworkers in the specialty fruit and vegetable crop industry to identify opportunities to prepare for the changing climate.

“American Farmland Trust is looking forward to collaborating with this amazing group of partners to work to further resiliency and climate justice in rural communities in Oregon, Washington and Idaho,” Gabrielle Roesch-McNally, American Farmland Trust’s Women for the Land Director, said. “As an implementation partner, American Farmland Trust will utilize our peer-to-peer networking model to reach women, underserved audiences and other natural resource managers to better engage populations who have yet to be adequately included in this work and who are likely to experience very severe disruptions from climate change.”

In addition to working with specific rural and coastal tribal communities, the Collaborative is designed to accelerate climate adaptation in the Northwest, across the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments network and in state and federal climate resilience programs and policies. This will be accomplished through a variety of initiatives that transfer successful community-based innovations to similar communities; that influence the state and federal entities shaping the laws, policies and investment strategies that will determine future community resilience; and that invest in community capacity to help them reduce their vulnerability to a changing climate while pursuing their own community values.

The Resilience Collaborative is “breaking the mold of traditional climate adaptation efforts,” Snover said, “which, while important and necessary, will not be sufficient for preparing for the impacts of climate change. As the climate continues to change, impacting our economies, ecosystems and communities in ways that are varied and inequitable, this work has never been more urgent.”

The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative will consist of the following partners:

Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians: Mr. Don Sampson; Dr. Chas Jones

American Farmland Trust: Ms. Addie Candib; Dr. Gabrielle Roesch-McNally

Front and Centered: Ms. Aurora Martin; Dr. Esther Min

Headwaters Economics: Dr. Megan Lawson; Ms. Patricia Hernandez

Idaho State University: Dr. Katrina Running

Portland State University: Dr. Jennifer Allen; Dr. Liliana Caughman; Dr. Vivek Shandas

UW Climate Impacts Group: Dr. Amy Snover; Dr. Meade Krosby; Dr. Guillaume Mauger; Dr. Crystal Raymond; Dr. Jason Vogel

Washington Sea Grant: Dr. Russell Callender; Mr. Jackson Blalock; Dr. Melissa Poe

Washington State University: Mr. Chad Kruger; Dr. Sonia Hall; Dr. Georgine Yorgey; Dr. Bernadita Sallato

Western Washington University: Dr. Marco Hatch