The Resilient Coasts Canada (Resilient-C) platform is a free online platform developed at the University of British Columbia to help coastal communities identify other communities across the country that share similar hazard exposure and vulnerability profiles, discover the actions their peers have taken to address coastal hazard risk, and promote resilience-building networks.
The platform works by identifying coastal hazard exposure, hazard vulnerability indicators, and actions communities have implemented to address coastal hazard risk.
Each of the 180+ communities on the platform is evaluated for exposure to five coastal hazards: coastal flooding, riverine flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis, and contaminant spills, based on local and national exposure datasets.
Resilient-C uses a set of 25 indicators to measure how similar communities are across economic, social, built environment, natural environment, and institutional capitals. Indicator values are derived from census, business, land use, and other national, provincial, or municipal geospatial data sources.
Resilience-building actions are any decision or effort undertaken solely by or in cooperation with a specific community that aims to reduce the risks associated with the five coastal hazards on the platform. Actions must take time, money, or other resources (e.g., technology) and must contribute to hazard risk reduction for one or more of the hazards targeted by the Resilient-C platform.
Actions are collected from publicly available planning documents, including official community plans, municipal bylaws, hazard-specific mitigation strategies, land-use regulations, and climate adaptation and sustainability plans. Each identified action is classified based on what the action seeks to accomplish and the mechanism used to implement the action (e.g., land-use regulations, damage mitigation). Actions are also coded based on any long-term strategies employed (e.g., protect, retreat, accommodate, avoid). Two implementation stages are possible: 'groundwork' for preliminary actions that help inform and prepare for future action (e.g., technical studies, committee creation), and 'implmemented' for tangible actions taken directly to address hazard risks.
Resilient-C is funded through the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR), a network of centres of excellence (NCE), and hosting for the platform is provided by UBC.