Co-Design Process Overview

LA SAFE introduced a ground-breaking approach to community adaptation planning that seeks to address the challenges of coastal degradation, land loss and increasing flood risk in direct partnership with the communities who are most impacted by those challenges. We recognize these coastal trends impact our environment and sustainability, our economies and jobs, and our communities and culture. To prepare for a more resilient future, we created a planning process that integrates planning expertise, science, and most importantly, community members across the coast who are experiencing these challenges firsthand. Our process relied on grassroots input from start to finish.

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Project Timeline

Below is a design illustrating the LA SAFE project timeline and the meeting process. Through larger parish-wide meetings and smaller community discussions, our LA SAFE team worked with residents across all six parishes to set design goals for the desired outcomes that they wish to see in their community. As the planning process moved along through the 2017 calendar year, the LA SAFE team worked with residents to achieve new milestones that advanced the work needed to produce a final strategy. In each of the discussions had with community members, the LA SAFE team presented the work that had been done up to the current point - work that was inspired and driven by input at the community level from the previous meeting - and asked them, “Is this correct? Is this what you are seeing in your community? Does this make sense?” In the final iteration of the LA SAFE process the team presented to the community a final adaptation strategy that was crafted with residents along every step of the way.