About

How ASERT can help your community

Engaging stakeholders at all levels of decision making is key to a community’s resilience to flooding and sea level rise.

Our research team has developed and tested an Action-Oriented Stakeholder Engagement for a Resilient Tomorrow (ASERT) framework as a participatory approach for adaptation actions related to flooding and sea level rise (SLR).

ASERT is designed to help policymakers, planners, community leaders, and others ensure broad stakeholder engagement (beyond simple public participation) that emphasizes action-oriented resilient responses to flooding and SLR.

The ASERT framework is designed to facilitate community resilience building by promoting a multi-sector collaboration that leads to citizens, businesses, and local governments communicating effectively about SLR risk and working more closely together to discover tenable and actionable adaptation strategies.

Find out more about our ASERT framework and methodology.

The ASERT framework was tested in a demonstration project in the Pretty Lake/Little Creek neighborhoods in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, VA. Since the demonstration project ASERT has been refined and applied in various other contexts, such as in support of the City of Virginia Beach Comprehensive Sea Level Rise Planning Process and to support the Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (RAFT) in the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

We look forward to supporting your community through ASERT!

A video of the community outreach events.