Co-constructing rural climate adaptation: Insights from the State of Climate Adaptation and Resilience in the Basin pilot project

Communities in rural regions face unique challenges when it comes to climate change adaptation planning. In the Columbia Basin of southeast British Columbia, Canada two communities came together in collaboration with regional institutions to pilot the State of Climate Adaptation and Resilience in the Basin (SoCARB) indicator suite to help monitor and inform climate change adaptation at the local scale. This study explores the process and results of the pilot project, employing an evaluative framework that assesses the SoCARB implementation feasibility and the utility for communities. The study findings highlight several feasibility constraints related to the indicators in terms of data availability, reliability and condition as well as through the fulfillment process in terms of local resource capacity. The study also finds community utility derived from fulfilling SoCARB through supporting community communications and decision-making pertaining to climate change adaptation, supporting funding mobilization and enhancing local knowledge systems. The study concludes with recommendations to improve upon SoCARB to increase uptake of the indicator suite by communities within the Columbia Basin region.