Citizen Science, Civics, and Resilient Communities: Informing Community Resilience Policies Through Local Knowledge, Community Values, and Community-Generated Data. (14th October 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sittenfeld, David; Farooque, Mahmud; Helmuth, Brian; Benson, Sara; Hostetler, Emily; Choi, Francis; Weller, Nicholas; Nickerson, Caroline; Todd, Katie; Cavalier, Darlene
• Is Part Of: Citizen science. Volume 7:Number 1(2022)
• Publication Date: 2022-10-14
• Subjects: Civics -- Community Science -- Hazards -- Resilience; Science -- Citizen participation -- Periodicals; Volunteer workers in science -- Periodicals; 507.2
• DOI: 10.5334/cstp.516
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2057-4991

Abstract

Because climate hazards present a range of potential impacts and considerations for different kinds of stakeholders, community responses to increase resilience are best considered through the inclusion of diverse, informed perspectives; local knowledge; and complementary methods of engagement. Our NOAA-funded Citizen Science, Civics, and Resilient Communities project utilizes a "science-to-civics" framework, combining participatory data collection with deliberation about potential strategies to build community resilience to climate hazards. These activities combine citizen-created resilience plans with participatory data collection activities in an effort to characterize and assess local vulnerabilities through co-creation of knowledge, while also eliciting public values about proposed policies for hazard mitigation. The project builds upon earlier activities that convened public deliberations to elicit public values and attitudes with respect to climate adaptation policies at eight US science centers. We propose that the synthesis of community data collection with these types of public fora demonstrates potential to amplify learning between resilience planning officials and diverse publics, increasing the relevance and usability of community-generated local knowledge for policymakers, and providing opportunities for citizen scientists to sustain engagement. We present evaluation results from the Forum deliberations, with particular focus on the co-generation of knowledge between and among public participants and resilience planners, summarize our first pilot of the science-to-civics model, which recently conducted a participatory community assessment in the Boston area about extreme heat, and describe a scaled national effort in 2021 that facilitated science-to-civics activities in 30 US communities.