Part II Overview

NECAP produced five reports for each partner town. One of each is included for illustrative purposes in part II of this book

The first report we produced for each community was a Stakeholder Assessment, summarizing the findings of our in-depth interviews with approximately 20 key local stakeholders. MIT staff conducted Stakeholder Assessment interviews during the fall of 2012. Project partners helped identify initial key interviewees for their town's assessment; further interviewees were identified through a process of “snowballing,” through which interviewees identified other people in the community to interview. The goal of the interviews was to document the perspectives of diverse stakeholder groups in each community regarding local climate change risks and adaptation. Staff summarized the findings from the interviews in a report that shared stakeholder viewpoints without attributing opinions to particular individuals. All local interviewees reviewed their town's Stakeholder Assessment report for accuracy and completeness before it was finalized. One key goal of the Stakeholder Assessment reports was to apprise local decision-makers and other key actors about the diverse perspectives in their community. They were also intended to inform each town's Summary Risk Assessment and the role-play simulation design that followed. Additionally, the Stakeholder Assessments allowed us to introduce ourselves to the elected and appointed officials involved with decisions about climate change adaptation. For illustration, we have included the Stakeholder Assessment for Dover, New Hampshire.

The second report we produced for each community was a Summary Risk Assessment. With the help of climate change adaptation consultants from the University of New Hampshire, we developed local climate change projections for each community. These projections were then translated into broad stroke assessments of local risk and possible adaptation responses. The methods used to generate the local climate change forecasts and to assess risks and adaptation options are explained in chapter 4. Significant consideration was given to how the risk assessment results were presented—in both written and visual form— to make it easy for local readers to absorb the material in these reports. Our local partners reviewed the draft Summary Risk Assessment reports before they were finalized. We have included the Summary Risk Assessment for Barnstable, Massachusetts.