“The adaptation plan is serving as a sourcebook of ideas to make the city more resilient.” |
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| Lisa Beever, Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program | |
For some communities, it seems the 25- to 100-year planning horizon for climate change impacts poses too great a challenge for local decision makers. Officials in Punta Gorda, Florida, however, embraced the opportunity to work with coastal resource managers to develop a climate change adaptation plan, and are already working to incorporate adaptation measures into strategic planning goals.
“The adaptation plan is serving as a sourcebook of ideas to make the city more resilient,” says Lisa Beever, director of the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program and facilitator of the city’s adaptation planning process. “The plan prioritizes adaptation strategies and addresses the most significant vulnerabilities.”
The development of Punta Gorda’s climate change adaptation plan was completed as part of the Climate Ready Estuaries program initiated in 2007 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Estuary Programs. Charlotte Harbor was one of six estuaries selected to be a case study to develop plans to help protect sensitive coastal ecosystems, infrastructure, and economies from the effects of climate change.
To develop Punta Gorda’s climate change adaptation plan, public workshops were held to identify the city’s overall climate change vulnerabilities, as well as the mitigation strategies and adaptation techniques that could be used to address them. A process for the city to implement identified actions was also developed.
Hurricane Lessons
One of the reasons that Punta Gorda was amenable to working with Charlotte Harbor to develop a climate adaptation plan was the fact that the community was devastated by Hurricane Charley in August 2004, says Mitchell Austin, the city’s urban planner, whose first day on the job was the Monday after the storm.
At its peak intensity, Charley attained 150 mile per hour winds, making it a strong category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. The storm made landfall in southwestern Florida at maximum strength, making it the strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Andrew struck the state in 1992.
Charley caused $14.6 billion in property damage on the peninsula of Florida alone.
“It’s an eye-opening experience,” says Austin. “It totally changes your perspective on what is and what is not possible.”
More Resilient
As part of the recovery from Charley, Punta Gorda incorporated a variety of adaptation measures that will not only better prepare the community for future storms, but also increase its resilience to climate change impacts.
One city initiative in 2007 included working with Florida Sea Grant and the University of Florida Conservation Clinic in the Levin College of Law to develop comprehensive planning language addressing sea level rise implications for infrastructure.
Picking on Punta Gorda
When Charlotte Harbor began looking for a southwestern Florida community to work with to develop a climate change adaptation plan, Florida Sea Grant Marine Agent Betty Staugler suggested Punta Gorda.
“Since they already had comprehensive planning language for sea level rise, we were bringing resources they needed to help implement that policy,” Beever says. “It was a ready-made partnership that Florida Sea Grant helped to foster.”
On December 17, 2008, the Punta Gorda City Council voted unanimously to participate in the project.
Fun and Games
Charlotte Harbor invited city residents and other stakeholders to a series of workshops to help prepare the city for changes in the weather.
These changes could include more drought, less availability of potable water, sea level rise, shorter winter seasons, higher humidity, higher maximum temperatures, more hot days and heat waves, higher and stronger storm surges, and increased precipitation, including heavy and extreme precipitation events, increased storm frequency, and stronger storms.
Three public workshops were held to derive vulnerabilities, adaptation options, and priorities.
The key to the workshops’ success, says Beever, was the use of four different public participation games that helped gather critical data.
“When you are building plans with citizenry participation, it is really important to respect their time and input,” Beever says. “Games do help respect their time and make the process pleasant and meaningful.”
Acceptable Options
During the workshops, the citizens prioritized eight major areas of climate change vulnerability for the city. These included fish and wildlife habitat degradation, inadequate water supply, flooding, unchecked or unmanaged growth, water quality degradation, education and economy and lack of funds, fire, and availability of insurance.
A total of 104 acceptable and 34 unacceptable recommended adaptation options were identified and prioritized by group agreement, Beever says.
The top agreed-upon adaptation strategies included seagrass protection and restoration, Xeriscaping and native plant landscaping, explicitly indicating in the comprehensive plan which areas will retain natural shorelines, constraining locations for certain high-risk infrastructure, and restricting fertilizer use.
The plan underwent public, city staff, and council review before it was unanimously accepted in November 2009. “The city council directed staff members to incorporate components of the plan into their normal work process, including their comprehensive planning update,” Beever says.
Incremental Steps
“Climate change is a really complicated long-range challenge,” Austin says. “However, there are tiny incremental pieces that can make a huge difference in the long run. If we start taking these on today, it’s not going to be that hard or unpalatable, and it is only incrementally more costly than what we are doing anyway.”
He adds, “To us, this plan means having some basis to start. We now have the data and analysis, and we have a framework to think about which of the menu of options as far as adaptation make sense at any point in time.”
For more information, go to www.chnep.org/projects/climate/CRE.htm. You may also contact Lisa Beever at (239) 338-2556, ext 235, or lbeever@swfrpc.org, or Mitchell Austin at (941) 575-3335, or maustin@ci.punta-gorda.fl.us.
