Cal-Adapt and the usability of climate adaptation tools

Abstract

Communities around the globe have already begun to feel the impacts of climate change. Looking forward, the impact will only become more pronounced. As such, an increasing number of municipalities, counties, and states are asking how they can prepare. Various non-profits, public entities, and even the private sector are trying to facilitate smart preparedness policies by providing tools that forecast expected changes and provide guidance for vulnerability assessments. Many of these tools take the form of map-based visualizations showing downscaled climate data. This thesis explores whether communities are actually able to use this downscaled data to inform decisions and consider policy options that will increase their resilience. I specifically focus on a tool produced by the State of California called Cal-Adapt. Based on interviews with local officials and climate professionals across California, I find that climate tools like Cal-Adapt do provide value. They deliver information needed by local officials to think through future conditions and lobby for the resources they need. Despite this, Cal-Adapt is not reaching its full potential. Local action is impaired by an ambiguous policy objective at the state level regarding what local officials ought to be doing to respond to climate change. This lack of guidance is reflected in Cal-Adapt, which fails to support specific decisions. As a contrast to Cal-Adapt, I look at two other web-based tools, and one case study of a county that applied climate data quite heavily in its vulnerability assessment. In all three examples, the data developers employed a collaborative approach that brought decision-makers, stakeholders, and scientists together. All three tools gained power through this collaborative process, making their data more usable when compared to Cal- Adapt. However, even in places with access to collaboratively built tools, the state's failure to mandate action on climate preparedness continued to impair action.