Resilience, Sustainablility and Data --driven Adaptation

Resilience and sustainability are closely linked. Sustainability efforts tend to need to strengthen the natural capital, social capital, and economic capital so that residents and local businesses can survive, adapt, and flourish in the face of emerging trends and challenges. This session will explore how communities can align their efforts to achieve both resilience and sustainability and how earth observation data and modeling experts can inform the communities..

Speakers will be chosen who can share their perspectives on resilience and sustainability based on actual community experiences, and will engage the audience in an interactive discussion. The outcome will be insights and recommendations about policies, practices, data needs and earth observation and research opportunities that can help to create more resilient and sustainable communities. focus on the long view, developing the capacity to support the needs of a growing population in the face of climate change, resource scarcity, and other environmental and economic pressures. Resilience efforts tend to focus on sudden events, developing the capacity to absorb and recover from shocks such as natural and anthropogenic disasters or interruptions in critical services. However, Resilience also includes focusing on trends over time that will result in the loss of needed resources or services.  All of these are key considerations in the planning and management of community needs, including transportation, infrastructure, land use, energy and water supply, waste management, local commerce, job creation, poverty alleviation, and emergency preparedness. Both are also key in identifying and readying the observational data sources that can be used in the rapid analysis of sudden events and the deployment of rapid response and adaptation tools selection.

In a complex and turbulent world, unforeseen conditions can lead to unintended and cascading consequences, often undesirable ones. Therefore, resilience is a prerequisite for realization of sustainability goals and the right observational data and appropriate analysis/decision tools are a prerequisite for effective resilience. Community leaders need to strengthen the natural capital, social capital, and economic capital so that residents and local businesses can survive, adapt, and flourish in the face of emerging trends and challenges. This session will explore how communities can align their efforts to achieve both resilience and sustainability and how earth observation data and modeling experts can inform the communities..

The outcome will be insights and recommendations about policies, practices, data needs and earth observation and research opportunities that can help to create more resilient and sustainable communities.

Possible Presentations during the Session

Tools and Data to support Resilience Investment Decisions – The Challenge

City and Community Resilience Programs at EPA – What are the tools and data needs?

Resilience Program Data Generation at NASA/NOAA

Agricultural and Food Resilience Programs at USDA

The 100 Resilient Cities program sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation

USAID and the Global Resilience Program with the Rockefeller Foundation

The UN General Assembly Post-2015 Development Agenda and Big Data