We are working with your community to envision and help you take action to pursue a healthy, thriving City of Kamiah.

Motivation: Annually, the U.S. spends billions of dollars recovering from disasters. Research shows that every $1 spent on mitigation saves $4-6 in post-disaster recovery, highlighting the need for pre-disaster research and mitigation. Further, developing ways to measure resilience and build resilience strategies that reduce risk, enhance economic resilience, identify and prioritize infrastructure upgrades, and address the most pressing needs of our communities, is a national priority1-5. However, communities – especially rural ones – typically lack the capacity and expertise to build collaborative resilience strategies, and most resilience metrics are designed for urban centers6.

We engage diverse community partners in resilience action planning to identify actions that will strengthen local and regional resilience and to explore funding options to support them. Our whole community approach promotes cooperation, collaboration, informed and integrated planning, and equitable decision-making. Once a strategy is complete, we (1) map our findings to the community comprehensive plan and hazard mitigation plan for recommended updates, and (2) connect students and faculty with community partners to address key community-identified resilience strategy challenges, advancing both resilience science and our ability to address community needs through interdisciplinary, solutions-oriented projects. 

City of Kamiah Resilience Assessment: Our resilience assessment approach adapts the City Resilience Index6, designed for urban centers, to rural communities. The assessments consider acute shocks, such as natural and manmade disasters, and chronic stresses, which are slow-burning issues such as poverty, lack of economic resilience, housing, and food insecurity that weaken the fabric of a community over time. We include the dimensions of infrastructure and environment, economy and society, leadership and strategy, and health and wellbeing. 52 indicators evaluated through 156 indicator questions determines the community’s strengths and areas of need beneath each dimension. 

We piloted this approach in 2021 in the rural City of Kamiah, Idaho with six Building Resilience Communities VIP (Boise State course) students and cross-sector regional stakeholders and rights holders, including the Nez Perce Tribe. We convened 24 group interviews with 42 participants (some participants were involved in multiple interviews), totaling more than 50 hours of interaction. Interview topics included:

• Disaster Management 

• Emergency Preparedness; Crime; Justice 

• Environment and Ecosystems

• Utilities – Water, Energy, & Sanitation

• Information and Communications Technology

• Health and Social Welfare

• Business; Finance and Economy 

• Housing; Employment

• Education  

• Governance

• Citizen Participation and Awareness; Community Culture 

The purpose of the group interviews was to bring together community members from across sectors and enhance community connections and collaborative potential. 

Fifty-two indicators evaluated through 156 indicator questions determined the community’s strengths and areas of need beneath each dimension. These interviews compile qualitative answers to questions on each topic. We also research quantitative assessment, as available, for each metric. For example:

Qualitative Question: On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the worst case scenario and 5 being the best case scenario), to what extent are the ambulance service adequately trained and resourced to effectively respond to call-outs?

Quantitative Metric: Number of paramedics per 100,000 population

Upon completion of the assessment, we will assemble the results in an easy-to-review PDF and ask for community input. Please see our Kamiah output as an example.

City of Kamiah Resilience Strategy: We will held an in-person, whole-community, solutions-focused workshop to build the resilience strategy. We invite organizations that serve the community to participate and bring materials and resources about how to engage with their organization. This enables any action planning to be based in existing community resources. We use Challenge and Solution Trees. The Challenge Trees name the primary area of interest as the trunk. The branches represent what the community sees as related issues in their community. The tree roots list the root causes of the problems identified in the tree branches. The root causes are color-coded so that the community can see how the same root causes manifest themselves as problems that manifest across many different sectors of their community. Please see our Kamiah trees as an example.

During the workshops, we hang posters with the problem trees, which we fill in prior to the event. We also hang blank solution tree posters for the community to fill in. We ask participants to go to the topic area they are most interested in first. They work in a group to discuss potential solutions to the root causes of issues in their community (roots of solution trees), and envision what would change as a result of addressing those issues (branches of the solution trees). Participants move to different groups throughout the morning so they can work on multiple topics. 

During the afternoon or the workshop, we discuss group findings and help participants create a list of actions. We enable action planning using goal-setting strategies and filling out this table. We shared this information with the community through a user-friendly City of Kamiah Website, updating the website after each step of the project.  

Building Resilience in the City of Kamiah: During fall of 2022 and continuing into spring 2023, we helped the City of Kamiah get started on their resilience strategy actions by connecting Boise State professors and students aligned with specific research projects through our ongoing VIP course. Research projects include:

• Collaborative flood mitigation and shared decision-making through the Lawyer Creek Technical Working Group. Faculty: Dr. Brittany Brand, Geosciences; Student: Anujay Chopra (undergraduate), Communications 

• Lewis County Tax Revenue and Economic Resilience Assessment: Faculty: Dr. Lee Parton, Economics; Student: Tayah Brodt (undergraduate), Economics 

• Kamiah Infrastructure Asset Mapping and Upgrade Plan. Faculty: Drs. Brittany Brand and Carson MacPherson-Krutsky, Geosciences; Student: Sabrina Akther (graduate), Geosciences

• Kamiah Housing Assessment and Improvement Plan. Faculty: Drs. Brittany Brand and Vanessa Fry; Student:  Nathaniel Campbell (undergraduate), Urban Planning 

Testimonial:

 “The work produced by the HCRI ... far transcends any expectation the city could have hoped for and continues to this day. The body of work, analysis, and data compiled by the HCRI will serve the City of Kamiah into the next decade for decision-making and grant application purposes.” -Mike Tornatore, Deputy Clerk, City of Kamiah  

Project Summary: 

The Boise State Hazard and Climate Resilience Institute adapted the City Resilience (CR) Index, designed for urban centers, for the City of Kamiah (population: 1200), which is situated within the Nez Perce Reservation. The CR index includes the dimensions of infrastructure and environment, economy and society, leadership and strategy, and health and well-being. Fifty-two indicators are evaluated through 156 indicator questions to determine the community’s strengths and areas of need beneath each dimension. We held virtual group interviews with 49 community partners across all sectors of the community to assess resilience metrics and facilitate conversations about next steps for resilience planning. We then led a solutions-focused community workshop with 50 attendees to develop priority resilience actions and shared materials and results with the community through https://sites.google.com/boisestate.edu/kamiah-resilience-assessment/home. To help the community get started on their resilience actions we connected Boise State professors and students aligned with specific research projects: (1) flood mitigation; (2) economic resilience; (3) infrastructure and asset mapping; and (4) affordable housing.

References Cited:

1FEMA Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program. https://www.fema.gov/grants/mitigation/building-resilient-infrastructure-communities

2National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2019). Building and measuring community resilience: actions for communities and the Gulf Research Program.

3National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2021). Motivating Local Climate Adaptation and Strengthening Resilience: Making Local Data Trusted, Useful, and Used.

4National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2021). Enhancing Community Resilience through Social Capital and Social Connectedness: Stronger Together!.

5Text - H.R.3684 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. (2021, November 15). https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text

6Index, C. R. (2014). City resilience framework. The Rockefeller Foundation and ARUP, 928.