Coastal Flood Planning and Adaptation Workshop

This toolkit creates a framework for localities to plan for and adapt to sea level rise, coastal flooding, and increased storm flooding impacts. The workshop was developed with rural Virginia communities as the target audience, but alternative datasets are recommended for use in other rural coastal geographies.

Optimized for the local and/or regional community planning level, the workshop is designed to engage stakeholders in visually assisted dialogues to understand vulnerability using specific scenarios of expected change, develop adaptation solutions, and assess the outcomes of selected adaptation options under each scenario. The workshop utilizes game play to encourage participant engagement and enhance understanding. The game uses simplified mental models of expected change and the mitigation of that change that can be accomplished through adaptation. Visualizations support understanding and leverage existing tools and datasets, making the workshop exportable to new locations.

In 2024 and 2025, the Consortium for Scenario Planning supported five XSP projects that focused on the use of exploratory scenario planning (XSP) to enhance community disaster recovery and resilience planning. Selected projects addressed various disasters, from wildfire and extreme heat, to sea level rise and flooding. The projects resulted in the development of toolkits that demonstrate how the scenario planning process was adapted in each of the communities. The other toolkit belonging to this series can be accessed below:

Enhancing Disaster Management and Resilience to Floods through Exploratory Scenario Planning in Colombia

Elaboración de “escenarios de riesgo” de base comunitaria: Estudio de caso en Santa Fe, Argentina (in Spanish)

Preparing for the Expected Unexpected: Wildfire in the Rural Municipality of Piney