Empowering Communities by Optimizing the Deployment of Neighborhood-scale Resilience Hubs: A Case Study of Maui Island

Abstract

As a part of an integrated planning approach to develop programs intended to support communities increasingly facing impacts of natural disasters, including those associated with climate change, neighborhoods must strengthen their local community cohesion and resilience. One way to support neighborhood-scale resilience is to create recognized and accepted local resilience hubs. These hubs are physical spaces intended to serve as a community resource during normal non-emergency periods, while also having the ability to serve as backup emergency shelters and emergency recovery hubs during and immediately following emergency events, such as natural disasters. Critical services are integrated into such resilience hubs, including back-up power supply, potable water, telecommunications, medical resources, and food provisions as complements to other support systems. This paper provides a case study of how resilience hub sites are selected and enhanced for resiliency using bottom-up community engagement methods coupled with technical resilient power feasibility studies. This methodology results in the creation of resilience hubs that are accepted, trusted and stewarded by neighborhood residents, while meeting specified community needs. The community engagement process in this study informed resilient power feasibility analyses of three targeted sites on the Island of Maui. Communities who implement this approach will increase their resilience, including their community cohesion. This study is intended to inform related research exploring how a distributed network of resilience hubs can serve as a critical component of resilient island and remote communities, which face increasing and disproportionate vulnerability to disaster impacts resulting from climate change.