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Adapting the Climate Resilience Screening Index (CRSI) for demonstration in selected U.S. coastal counties: EPA Region 4 and South Carolina
Citation:
Smith, L., L. Harwell, Kevin Summers, K. Buck, AND J. Bousquin. Adapting the Climate Resilience Screening Index (CRSI) for demonstration in selected U.S. coastal counties: EPA Region 4 and South Carolina. 2018 Social Coast Forum, Charleston, SC, February 05 - 08, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Adaptation of the U.S. EPA Climate Resilience Screening Index (CRSI) for two geographies (1) EPA Region 4 coastal counties and (2) South Carolina coastal counties demonstrates the utility of CRSI to highlight and compare risk components, evaluate relative contributions to resilience, and delineate indicator influence on the composite measure for multiple scales. Deriving CRSI values within these geographies also allows for more specific characterizations that could be used to target resources for increasing community resilience to acute climate events.
Description:
Natural disasters often impose significant and long-lasting stress on financial, social and ecological systems. From Atlantic hurricanes to Midwest tornadoes to Western wildfires, no corner of the U.S. is immune to the threat of devastating climate events. Across the nation, there is a recognition that creating socio-ecological environments that are resilient to adverse climate events helps promote and sustain community success over time. The USEPA Office of Research and Development has developed a Climate Resilience Screening Index (CRSI) to characterize the resilience of socio-ecological systems in the context of governance and risk to acute climate events. The index is a composite measure comprised of five domains (Risk, Governance, Education, Society, Built Environment, and Natural Environment) represented by 20 indicators calculated from 117 metrics. Originally, CRSI was developed for all U.S. counties for the years 2000-2015, with resilience characterizations based on the full range of nationwide county domain scores. Here, we demonstrate two adaptations of CRSI where the geographies of county domain scores are limited to highlight and compare risk components, evaluate relative domain contributions to resilience, and delineate indicator contributions. The first limits the range of scores to USEPA Region 4 coastal counties. The second characterization focuses on the coastal counties of South Caroline to hone within state comparisons. By evaluating the factors that influence vulnerability and recoverability, a resilience index can quantify how changes in these factors will impact relative resilience given specific hazard profiles. Ultimately, this knowledge will help communities target potential areas for resources to increase resilience against acute climate events.