Azavea Inc. — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.6

Description

The socioeconomic geographic and demographic characteristics of rural and tribal communities putthem at even greater risk of environmental variations than their urban or suburban counterparts; thereforethey need different data-driven tools to help them increase community resilience. To facilitate long-termadaptation planning these communities need affordable flexible software applications that can aggregateinformation for customized areas of interest regardless of city limits or county lines.The proposed research seeks to address these needs by developing new web-based tools that will enablelocal decision-makers to combine key discoverable datasets about their community's natural built andeconomic environments with fine-resolution climate projection data in powerful ways that will supportpolicy-making resource allocation and proactive response strategies in rural and underservedcommunities throughout the United States. It will enable this through the extension and enhancement ofTemperate Azavea's existing web-based subscription service that can rapidly process fine-resolutionclimate projection data and guide users through the creation of a vulnerability assessment and adaptationplans. Temperate provides more than just the standard visualizations of the global-scale temperature andprecipitation change data that are currently available: it presents location-specific information and tailoredadaptation strategies from like-minded communities that users can choose from when creating their ownplans. This database of strategies will grow exponentially as Temperate usage increases furtherexpanding its utility to communities in need. With this proposal Azavea endeavors to support adaptationplanning at the rural tribal county or regional levels rather than just for individual cities by enablingTemperate users to define their own geographic areas of interest; all information displayed within theapplication from that point forward will be specific to the user's chosen geographic area.In order to interweave visualizations and information regarding the current state of community stressors -both climate and non-climate related - in a broader range of locations Azavea plans to add a number ofrelevant datasets to Temperate illustrate the relationships between environmental changes and theirsubsequent impacts clearly and completely rework the user experience to encompass a more holisticplanning process that will appeal to decision-makers in rural and tribal communities and regions. In PhaseI additional data will pertain only to California in order to demonstrate feasibility and may include healthinformation socioeconomic factors natural resources or facets of the built environment among others.Finally these new data will be combined seamlessly within the application with climate data to illustratethe relationships between exposures impacts and strategies all of which will be displayed intuitivelythrough compelling visualizations including maps charts and graphs.There is no known commercial product that rivals Temperate in providing communities with such a data-rich and easy-to-use adaptation planning tool at an affordable price. Furthermore through Azavea'spartnership with ICLEI USA Local Governments for Sustainability Temperate users can access in-depthsupport services that can be customized to the needs of each community. By adding the new featuresmade possible through this grant we will further increase Temperate's competitive advantage by makingit available to the many rural and tribal communities that are often overlooked by resilience planningproducts and services.An enhanced Temperate has the potential to help thousands of these communities nationwide to increase their resilience and protect the lives and livelihoods of their residents. It will also benefit the public-atlarge in three very important ways: (1) it will bring together a range of disparate data sources that impact community resilience in one, low-cost, intuitive web-based application; (2) it will support policy-making, resource allocations, and public outreach activities specific to rural populations and tribal communities; and (3) it will help public and private sector organizations, with particular focus on rural areas, to strengthen the preparedness and response strategies that are so critical to their communities.