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Review of 2020 Climate Resilience Ecosystem Workshop

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The “Resilience Ecosystem” is made up of the organizations and individuals who are collectively working to create a climate resilient future in the U.S. The inaugural gathering of leaders in climate resilience happened two years ago in Washington DC and was hosted by NOAA, the Climate Resilience Fund, and EcoAdapt.

The purpose of these gatherings is to determine what is needed at the field level to propel the resilience field forward, making it stronger and more capable of delivering the services required by communities and natural resource managers as we respond to the changes already underway because of the climate crisis.

Our Executive Director, Tonya Graham, participated in the DC gathering in 2018 as well as the second workshop, which was held through four on-line sessions between April 28 And May 6 of this year.

Participants worked together to identify critical gaps in the field and develop projects that will address those gaps. Through this process, collaborations of organizations can put forward project ideas to the Climate Resilience Fund to receive seed funding. The requirement for funding is that the tool developed needs to be available to all free of charge.

Through the Resilience Ecosystem Workshop, the Geos Institute is now working with several partners to develop a database of climate resilience strategies that can be used to assist communities around the country in addressing vulnerabilities. Once the database is in place, communities will be able to search for strategies based on the vulnerabilities they have identified – making it much more efficient to move from planning to implementation.

Since late last year, our team has been working to develop a strategy database that will help communities assess different strategies to determine how best to move forward to build resilience. Our database includes information regarding how solutions impact efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, their impact on the environment, and how they can be adapted to be more socially equitable. While our goal is to create a useful tool for communities building climate resilience plans through our Climate Ready Communities program, we have always intended for it to be made available more widely at no cost.

Our team is now working with a group of partners through the Resilience Ecosystem Workshop to combine our database with similar efforts and build a searchable electronic platform. We are working to have a beta version ready by the end of this year.

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