PHASE 3:
Envisioning Future Coastal Management Pathways
A sequence of four participatory virtual convenings
Building directly upon the stakeholder engagement and Opportunity Area development, and leveraging the global best practice videos developed for the convening as inspiration, RCC and SDRCC then held an integrated sequence of four participatory virtual convenings over the course of two weeks in July 2020. Just over 50 stakeholders representing a variety of stakeholder groups contributed their expertise to these sessions.
Laura Engeman, Coastal Resilience Specialist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, provided introductory remarks during the Opening Webinar.
Opening Webinar
The Exchange’s Opening Webinar set the stage for forthcoming sequence of activities by fostering community, grounding the work in local and global context, and beginning to source shared values for the coastline that informed the rest of the Exchange.
Participants were welcomed by RCC facilitators as well as local leaders, who inspired them collaboratively to bring fresh thinking and generate new approaches to the region’s entrenched coastal resilience challenges. After a deep dive into these challenges, RCC provided an introduction to important coastal resilience concepts. Finally, during breakout sessions in small facilitated groups that allowed for engaging conversation, participants generated and discussed a shared vision that evoked goals and aspirations for their community's coastal future. These visions spanned diverse topics, including natural ecosystems, the economy, open space, infrastructure, and access to the coast.
Here are some of the values that were most important to participants, and that grounded conversations in laster phases of the Exchange.
Coastal Resilience Innovations Webinar
After watching the three video case studies created for the Exchange featuring innovative global project examples from San Diego, Waikiki and the Netherlands, participants re-convened for a second Webinar to engage in discussions with leaders of these projects. Through an interactive dialogue with these global experts, this webinar inspired participants to consider a broad range of coastal solutions.
Henk Ovink, the Special Envoy for International Water Affairs for the Netherlands, kicked off the webinar, grounding the day’s discussion with his global perspective and charging participants to take a regional approach to coastal challenges. Ovink then moderated a panel discussion with representatives of each of the project case studies, asking them what it was about the challenge they were trying to solve that required them to do something new, and why the known tested solutions were unavailable to them. Finally, all participants then had the opportunity to join small group breakout sessions with the global case experts and ask practical questions about applicability in the San Diego region.
Opportunity Area Design Sprints
The next phase of the Exchange is where participants had the opportunity to build upon all of the previous sessions and develop new approaches for the region’s coastal challenges. During small-group design sprints, each of which was oriented around a specific Opportunity Area and included a diverse curated mix of local stakeholders, participants applied inspiration and tactical levers from coastal resilience innovation cases to local opportunity areas; fostered deeper cross-sectoral collaboration with one another; sourced ideas, enablers, and barriers to advancing each opportunity area; and ultimately generated new approaches that are ready to be developed further.
RCC facilitators worked with each small group over the course of a sequence of interactive exercises conducted over Zoom. In addition to RCC facilitators and experts, each small group was also joined by an external subject matter expert from outside the region to provide additional expertise, showcase additional best practices, and prompt new thinking. Over the course of five participatory and interactive exercises, participants reflected on and articulated the values they aspired to drive in developing solutions; elevated existing barriers to achieving that vision; sourced ideas for approaches that advance the Opportunity Area around, over or through those barriers and toward the vision; distilled their ideas; and began to build out an approach scope and goals ready for further discussion.
Here are the Opportunity Statements developed collaboratively by participants over the course of the Design Sprints, along with the resulting approaches they developed. Approaches, along with best practices that can serve as implementation resources, are discussed in greater depth in the following section of this report.
Opportunity Area: Learning from Nature-Based Pilots & Scaling Success
Opportunity Statement: How might we effectively deploy limited funding, and work within / around local and state regs, to replicate and scale best in class nature based solutions that 1) protect/stabilize the coast and are self-sustaining over the long term, 2) promote health and balance among our ecosystems and communities, and 3) preserve access to and engagement with the coast across jurisdictional boundaries and legacy infrastructure?
Approach: Regional Resilience Roadmap
Opportunity Statement: How might we deploy and learn from a balanced set of adaptive solutions over the long term that protect ecological health and critical infrastructure, while connecting communities, embracing dynamism and uncertain change over time?
Approach: Oceanside Littoral Cell Design Lab
Opportunity Area: Financing and Funding Coastal Resilience Solutions
Opportunity Statement: How might we advance innovative regional, equitable coastal resilience funding and financing solutions that 1) capture the full benefits and costs of action/inaction, 2) offer greater flexibility and appropriate cost-sharing in deployment, 3) have long-term sustainability, while engaging diverse sectors and multiple jurisdictions?
Approach: San Diego Future Fund
Opportunity Area: Strengthening Regional Governance and Regulatory Environments
Opportunity Statement: How might we strengthen regional governance (traditional or non-traditional) that helps build a shared vision to drive individual and collective action, while optimizing use of resources and regulations and ensuring equitable access and representation across the region?
Approach: Regional Resilience Roadmap
Opportunity Area: Community Planning and Communicating Long-term Risk
Opportunity Statement: How might we strengthen equitable, community-driven planning, in a context of dynamic urgent challenges, that defines a shared cross-jurisdictional vision and framework for action, expands community level knowledge and trust, and generates public benefits--while fairly allocating responsibilities and costs?
Approach: San Diego Future Campaign