Building adaptive capacity of US Gulf Coast city practitioners to extreme weather events.

Abstract

Building city practitioners' capacity to prepare for and respond to climate change-driven events can increase coastal cities' resilience. We conducted a first-of-its-kind mixed methods research project from 2021 to 2023 with 46 US Gulf Coast small and midsize cities to measure the effectiveness of an adaptive capacity-building intervention: a stormwater planning tool called FloodWise Communities (FWC) deployed through the engagement between researchers and practitioners in each city. City practitioners were surveyed preintervention and postintervention between September 2021 and December 2022. Interviews were then conducted through July 2023. We found (i) FWC positively relates to perceptions of actionable knowledge and a change in adaptation intentions; (ii) city practitioners' adaptation-relevant roles and responsibilities positively related to their perceptions of actionable knowledge and adaptation intentions, with implications for their agency to build adaptive capacity; and (iii) anticipated and unanticipated uses of the FWC tool influenced city practitioners' perceptions of their adaptive capacity.