Resilience and Climate Change

Niger Strategic Resilience Assessment 

Led a Resilience Assessment in Niger for Mercy Corps International. Worked with staff from headquarters and field offices to carry out a process involving dozens of participants in multiple countries, created research design for community level Focus Group discussions, Key Informant Interviews, and Expert Interviews, reviewed secondary literature, and wrote a comprehensive report with a Theory of Change for a new 10 year strategy.

Colorado County Resiliency Plans

Facilitated stakeholder meetings in Larimer and El Paso Counties, Colorado as part of a County Resilience Planning process supported by the State of Colorado Recovery and Resilience Office and implemented by Ecology and Environment Inc. Designed and/or facilitated four workshops with other colleagues, and co-wrote the strategy sections of the County Resilience Plans.

Reducing Risk and Building Resilience to Disasters and Climate Change

Wrote an agency wide Guidance Document for Mercy Corps staff on Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation, and Resilience for Mercy Corps International. The document reviews the basics of these three interrelated fields, and guides staff into how to use all three to reduce risk for communities around the world to a variety of shocks and stresses. I also created an accompanying training workshop with a Facilitator’s Guide and Power Point,[CA1]  with support from Adaptive Resources Ltd. and ISET International, and piloted the workshop in Portland, Beijing and Tokyo with a variety of NGO participants.

Analysis of Red Cross/Red Crescent Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments for African Cities

Analyzed ten Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments, and recommended extensive changes to handle the complexity and scale issues in urban areas. Conducted a resilience training in Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya.

Characteristics of Resilience

There are many resilience frameworks. Most of them take into account the complex interrelationships between the systems that people rely on, the organizations that run them, and the resources available. They are very powerful, but they take time to understand. For many purposes, simply a list of what makes things more resilient will do in a pinch. We wrote this list to explain some common characteristics of resilience, and how to apply them.

Floods in Boulder: A Study of Resilience 2014

Conducted a study with Dr. Karen MacClune and other staff of ISET-International right after devastating floods ravaged the Boulder area. This case study provides concrete examples of what makes a city resilient through the analysis of built infrastructure, human systems, and legal and cultural norms. This study diagnoses why the county came through unscathed in some areas while encountering massive damages in others. The study used a conceptual framework for understanding resilience developed by ISET-International that has proved to be extremely useful both in the US and internationally. Prof. Ron Brunner described it as “by far the most comprehensive and detailed account of last year’s floods I’ve seen….It is also among the best case studies I’ve seen on disaster mitigation and climate adaptation in other local communities.”

BoCo Strong Video

This video made by Boulder County Strong documented 22 neighborhood resilience conversations after extensive floods to find out what worked, what did not, and what people’s current priorities are for building resilience in the area.