Facilitating a Collaborative Research Process: The Hudson River Sustainable Shorelines Project
CBI Practitioners:
Clients:
CBI assists the Hudson River Sustainable Shorelines Project to facilitate a
complex research and stakeholder engagement process with the aim of promoting
sustainable shoreline management in the face of sea level rise and more.
Background and Challenge
The Hudson River Estuary stretches 150 miles from rural inland towns to the urban harbor of New York City. It faces many ongoing and potential threats including intense development pressure; an ever-increasing number of floods; invasive species that decimate local ecosystems; and expected sea level rise, which could submerge the area's unique estuarine wetlands. In 2008, the Lower Hudson Estuarine Research Reserve, one of twenty-eight within the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, asked CBI to facilitate their newly-initiated Hudson River Sustainable Shorelines Project. This collaborative project aims to gather, synthesize, and distribute ecological, engineering, economic, management, and regulatory data on how best to manage the shoreline over time, especially in light of projected sea level rise.
The
project focuses on a 127 mile-stretch of the Hudson — located between
the Troy Dam and the Tappan Zee Bridge, just North of New York City —
where 1.3 million people work and live in 79 different municipalities.
Decisions to protect and manage this shoreline are made in an
extraordinarily complex legal and regulatory framework, and one in which
a number of critical questions need system-wide answers. What elevation
of sea level rise is likely in the Hudson? What is the ecological
impact of different shoreline management options? Which types of
shoreline structures hold the most promise for the overall health of
estuary? How are landowners making their shoreline management decisions,
and what information might help them in making better ones?
The Process
The technical nature and the scope of this project presents many communication and management challenges. Over ten different groups of expert researchers are working on a variety of topics and each must accept guidance from, and communicate clearly with the other researchers, project advisors, and stakeholders. Researchers must also examine their work and findings in the context of all the other research, incorporate stakeholder feedback, and explain the implications of their findings where possible, so that their questions, assumptions, and results are repeatedly examined and tested.
In order to effectively manage and facilitate this complex multi-year, multi-stakeholder process, the CBI team is employing a number of tools and strategies to:
• assist the Primary Investigator to manage the many related aspects of the project by tracking action items, maintaining schedules and holding meetings;
• coordinate research discussions by ensuring that participants are brought in at key moments, that the information they need is available and that issues are framed appropriately; and
• engage broader stakeholders,
including landowners, policy makers, advocacy groups, and the scientific
community through the use of focus and advisory groups to help clarify
issues and interests and keeping accurate and meeting summaries that
identify key topics and questions to be shared and addressed.
Facilitation in Action
At
a recent meeting facilitated by CBI, community members expressed
concern that framing the research efforts in the context of climate
change and sea level rise might alienate climate change skeptics. They
suggested that responsible shoreline management be linked to less
controversial topics such as environmental sustainability, or to
recreational activities such as fishing, in Project outreach materials.
After receiving this feedback, Project leaders decided to incorporate
this feedback into materials for local leaders.
Project Update
By
helping to keep the project's disparate research areas in sync; by
enabling technical researchers to test and explain their ideas with
each other and stakeholders before producing final products; and by
facilitating in-depth conversations about research standards, CBI is
assisting the Hudson River Sustainable Shorelines Project to move toward
useful and valuable conclusions that will support the protection of
these important shoreline resources.
Related Project Documents
Agenda - Sustainable Shorelines Advisory Committee Meeting, June 23, 2010
Meeting Summary - Sustainable Shorelines Advisory Committee Meeting, June 23, 2010
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