Development of Community-Level Capacity of Resilience to Natural Hazards for Environmental- and Social-Justice-Challenged Communities: 1. Approach, Concepts, and Assessment of Existing Information

Abstract

Impoverished and under-served communities are often exposed to the worst environmental and climate hazards. Identifying these communities and building their resilience capacity to withstand such hazards is a vital justice aspect of environmental management. Building community resilience requires five activities: (1) examination of existing information, (2) community engagement and assessment of local knowledge, (3) development of reasonable strategies to build resilience, (4) implementation and these strategies, and (5) monitoring and transability of the process. This manuscript examines the first component of this process. The attributes of multiple parishes in Louisiana are examined using available data and existing models of human well-being, community resilience, and environmental/climate/socioeconomic justice. These existing models and tools were used to determine parish-level resilience to natural hazards including flooding, hurricanes, and other potential natural climatic hazards in central Louisiana (U.S.). Through consultation with state officials and local community groups, candidate environmental justice (EJ) and social justice (SJ) communities were selected to develop resilience capacity enhancement plans to address potential adverse parish and community outcomes of natural hazard events. Of the available parishes, St. Helena Parish was selected as an entity that would significantly benefit from resilience capacity building. The remaining two activities, community engagement and strategy development, will be examined in sister manuscripts. Continuing studies, to be described elsewhere, will describe community engagement and the determination of strategies, implementation plans, and the monitoring of the success of these strategic implementations.