VCAPS is designed to support communities to:

• Engage in dialogue about the impacts of future weather and natural hazards like wildfire, flooding, and drought
• Summarize and incorporate local knowledge and experience about how the community will be impacted 
• Identify gaps in data, knowledge, or understanding
• Think strategically about actions that can be taken to increase resilience in the short and long term

Why VCAPS is unique:

• VCAPS is not just about providing hazard information; the process helps local decision-makers use a systems-thinking approach to make sense of how weather and natural hazards are linked to multiple social, economic, health, and other consequences in their community; it connects knowledge with local adaptation options.
• VCAPS helps communities create an inventory of public and private actions that can be taken to reduce vulnerability to a specific hazard from multiple angles. Actions are documented in real-time in diagrams.
• The process itself is designed to generate dialogue, shared understanding, and collective commitment and accountability to action.
• In essence, VCAPS provides structured discussion so a group can pool their knowledge of an issue in an efficient manner and document it visually.

The VCAPS Pilot Project

In the summer and fall of 2018 and 2019, the entire WWA team helped to plan and facilitate VCAPS workshops in six smaller and mid-sized communities in Colorado and Utah:

• Durango, CO (Summer 2018)
• Carbondale, CO (Fall 2018)
• Cortez, CO (Fall 2018)
• Routt County, CO (Fall 2018)
• Springdale, UT (Fall 2018)
• Moab, UT (Summer 2019)

Each community-driven VCAPS workshop focused on key hazards that WWA staff identified in interviews with workshop participants. Due to the ongoing historic drought in 2018, all of the communities chose to focus on drought, and two communities also focused on extreme precipitation. 

Taken together, the VCAPS workshops have given these smaller municipalities locally relevant hazard information and convened conversations that have helped them to advance their own efforts to increase resilience to severe drought. Since the workshops, we have heard from many of the communities that participated in the VCAPS Pilot Project about the value of these workshops and the impacts they had on municipal planning processes and decisions. 

In 2020, WWA conducted an online survey and interviews with workshop participants, as part of a formal evaluation process. A graduate student, Zöe McAlear, also evaluated the VCAPS Pilot Project for her MIT Master’s Thesis.  

VCAPS (2023-present)

Community Resilience Workshop in Lander, WY

On July 12-13, 2023, decision-makers and community members from Lander, Wyoming participated in the Lander Community Planning for Hazards workshop, organized, supported, and facilitated by the Western Water Assessment (WWA) team, including Research Information Specialist Seth Arens, Katie Clifford, NOAA Lapenta Intern Wilzave Quiles-Guzmán, and Caitlin Ryan from the Wyoming Anticipating Climate Transitions (WyACT) group. 

The workshop focused on understanding and planning for the impacts of flooding within city limits. WWA staff worked with local community members to identify town officials, staff, and other community stakeholders to participate in the workshop. Through a survey, the group of participants collectively identified flooding as their key hazard concern. During the workshop, participants explored existing and anticipated community impacts of flooding, identified gaps in knowledge, and brainstormed strategic short- and long-term actions that may reduce the impacts of flooding. 

The facilitation process used by WWA was specifically designed to support communities in building resilience to weather and natural hazards. The workshop began with a presentation about historical and future flooding in Lander. The WWA team then led the group in a facilitated discussion and a participatory diagramming exercise in which participants mapped out the causal chain of flood events, analyzed existing and anticipated community impacts of flooding, identified gaps in knowledge, and brainstormed strategic short- and long-term solutions for mitigating and adapting to increasing flood risks. Workshop discussions were summarized in a report written by Communications Lead and Scientist Ethan Knight in partnership with the WWA workshop team.

Links

Learn more about the VCAPS process

Read reports from workshops in the following communities:

• Carbondale, CO
• Cortez, CO
• Durango, CO