The NC State Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (CRSI) led by Professor Erin Seekamp is part of the Provost’s Office of University Interdisciplinary Programs. The CRSI is leading the Coastal Community Resilience Intensive Training (CCRIT) program in collaboration with the KIETS Climate Leaders Program led by Amanda Mueller. The resources and heritages that have traditionally sustained communities in the NC coastal plain and shorelines face numerous threats, such as coastal hazards and infrastructure damage, salinization and declining productivity of agricultural lands, contaminants in ground and surface waters, pathogens in mariculture and changing water temperatures altering fish stocks.
These vulnerabilities are being addressed within the state of North Carolina through the creation of the NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR), the creation of the Resilience Coastal Communities Program (RCCP) by the NC Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management (DCM), which is focused on 20 coastal communities identified in the 1974 Coastal Area Management Act. The RCCP model and process help communities identify climate resilience projects that could be funded through federal programs. DCM’s RCCP model begins with communities conducting a risk and vulnerability assessment. Many towns or unincorporated communities in NC do not have the resources (staff, expertise, software, funding) necessary to begin the process. Therefore, the CCRIT program will provide a mechanism for enhancing coastal community resilience capacity and sustaining coastal community resilience.
In FY 2023-24, the CCRIT program collaborated with Conservation Corps North Carolina, creating a call for applications, crafting and using an application rubric, and hiring 6 AmeriCorps 10-week positions (Assessment Coordinators), all of whom are NC State students. The CCRIT also secured program development, implementation, and student mentor leads: Rebecca Ward (Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative postdoctoral scholar) and Georgina Sanchez (Center for Geospatial Analytics research scholar). The CCRIT partnered with the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resilience (NCOR R) to identify and select Jones County as the region for Year 1 participating communities. Projected impacts include the following: training 6 CCRIT Assessment Coordinators (NC State students); providing asset maps and vulnerability assessment to a minimum of 3 communities within Jones County; building foundational programming and session videos to support future credentialing programs.
The CCRIT program will annually support six interns working in these capacity-limited communities. Communities are selected in collaboration with NCORR and DCM project partners allowing communities to self-identify and prioritize underrepresented and underserved communities. At the start of the CCRIT program, the interns will receive training at NC State on asset mapping and vulnerability assessments, as well as training in community engagement techniques. The training that is developed for the internship program will be transformed into short, intensive 1-credit courses that will be offered at NC State for graduate and undergraduate students (and interns) beginning (Year 2) and for professionals via the McKimmon Center (Year 3). These short courses will become part of a CRSI-sponsored micro-credentialing (badges) program that aims to enhance targeted sets of skills for students and professionals to enhance continuity in coastal community resilience. KIETS support leverages funding for internships through the Conservation Trust of NC as well as through the CRSI.