Post date: Mar 18, 2016 7:30:23 PM
The City of Salem Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Plan released by the City of Salem, Massachusetts (Dec. 2014).
The CCVAAP was a collaborative effort by city officials, the Climate Change Adaptation Advisory Working Group, and CDM Smith’s Research and Development Program. As a member of the Advisory Working Group, we worked with CDM Smith and the city’s Department of Planning & Community Development for two years leading up to December 2014. We utilized the ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) approach and the Plan had six general steps: 1) Determine future climate change impacts, 2) Identify affected sectors, 3) Conduct vulnerability assessment, 4) Prioritize vulnerabilities, 5) Develop adaptation strategies, and 6) Publish adaptation plan. Climate change projections from the IPCC Fifth Assessment were used by CDM Smith in their risk assessments; the main planning horizons projected to 2050, but for SLR and storm surges analyses were carried out to 2100. Four main climate impacts were considered the most likely to have significant consequences for Salem: extreme heat events, extreme precipitation events, sea level rise, and storm surges.
We worked to reach a consensus as to which six sectors of the City would be researched and for which climate change vulnerability assessment strategies would be developed. The six sectors were: critical building infrastructure, water, energy, stormwater, transportation, and vulnerable populations. CDM Smith used information gathered from interviews with city staff and climate change projection maps of SLR and flooding from storm surges to conduct the vulnerability assessment. For Salem the sensitivity and adaptive capacity for each of the six sectors were ranked on a five-point scale from low (1) to high (5). A high sensitivity score indicates that the sector is very susceptible to a climate change impact. A high adaptive capacity score indicates that a sector is not susceptible, but is resilient to a climate change impact. Of most concern, therefore, were sectors that had a high sensitivity score and a low adaptive capacity score indicating high vulnerability and high risk to climate change impacts. For the risk assessments, we considered four principal types of consequences: economic, health & safety, cultural & historical, and ecological & environmental – all of which were also ranked using a five-point scale from low (1) to high (5). Seventeen “priority vulnerabilities” were identified in the Plan to be the most critical for Salem to address to increase the city’s resiliency to climate change. Some examples of these priority vulnerabilities included: ineffective seawalls, flooding of evacuation routes, loss of power at critical city buildings, downed power lines, property damage or loss at Salem State University, flooding of residential areas, and flooding of emergency response facilities.
The Plan is 51 pages in length with three Appendices: 1) Figures, 2) detailed Matrices across 34 pages with approximately half devoted to vulnerability assessments, and half devoted to the priority vulnerabilities, and 3) detailed Tables (across 97 pages) of 43 climate change adaptation strategies for the prioritized vulnerabilities. Each of the 43 strategies included the following: a) a description of the adaptation strategy, b) the primary city department or staff to accomplish the strategy, c) project type, d) project time frame, e) potential partnerships, e.g., with NGO’s or state agencies, f) adaptation strategies with similar benefits, g) technical, implementation, and financial considerations, h) several case studies, and i) references with web links. The Plan and its three Appendices are at the city of Salem’s website on their page for “Studies & Reports”: www.salem.com/planning-and-community-development/pages/studies-and-reports
Submitted by Dr. John Hayes, Associate Professor of Geography, Salem State University, Salem, MA, long-time appointed member of the city’s Renewable Energy Task Force, and member of the city’s Climate Change Adaptation Advisory Working Group. John can be reached at: jthayes1212@gmail.com