Resilient Appalachia

About

Resilience can be defined as the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties.

The people of and communities in Appalachia have a long history of withstanding various challenges, from the time the region was settled to today, but the people and communities have steadily addressed those challenges for years through hard work, determination, perseverance, and creativity, all attributes that demonstrate Appalachia as resilient regardless of the circumstances.
 
We are working to support communities in southwest Virginia as they develop their own transition from a fossil-fuel dominated economy to one in which resiliency planning and renewable energy can provide new infrastructure, introduce new funding streams for community goals, and prepare residents for high-quality jobs within the industry.
 
Our team supports communities interested in engaging in their own climate-resilience strategic planning, community capacity building, and advancing projects that build climate resilience, energy efficiency and clean energy. We do this by providing evidence-based climate resilience strategic planning processes pro-bono, that we have been developing and improving for the past 9 years, and adapting for Appalachian communities for the past year. Our approach highlights the costs and benefits of the many options available to communities so that they can determine what is best suited for them.
 
We focus on community resilience as a bipartisan and approachable goal to help communities engage in a process to increase their resilience to disasters and threats. In our resilience strategic planning processes, we facilitate a conversation about the potential for renewable energy development and other new industries to be part of a revenue-driver for climate resilience strategic plans.
 
This community-based climate resilience planning process – called the RAFT (Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool) – is an innovative, evidence-based, “collective impact” collaborative approach to climate resilience that leverages the expertise and resources of multidisciplinary partners and diverse stakeholders to assist localities striving to increase their resilience. The RAFT has been developed by experts from the University of Virginia, College of William & Mary Law School, Old Dominion University and Virginia Tech to help communities understand their vulnerabilities and develop priorities to move toward resilience. The RAFT is being adapted by the current Climate Collaborative project in southwest Virginia to address the specific resilience needs and culture in Appalachian communities.

This project is funded by the UVA Environmental Institute.