Community Health And Resource Management (CHARM)

The Texas Coastal Watershed Program (TCWP) developed a new GIS-based software model to enable coastal residents and local officials to readily see the impacts of different development scenarios on community resilience and natural resources under varying climate change scenarios.  Using previously developed data sets associated with the Coastal Community Planning Atlas (in part funded by Texas Sea Grant), the TCWP developed an interface, using CommunityViz software, that allows impacts ranging from pollutant runoff loadings to water consumption (and thus freshwater inflow) to storm surge damage to be calculated instantaneously for a variety of development scenarios. The power of the CHARM model is the ability of participants to test a variety of possible futures, shifting the discussion from contested narratives about the science of coastal change and moving it towards a self-evaluation of how prepared their communities are for coastal change.

For more information please see a recent Grant Report.

CHARM Interview

Steven Mikulencak and Dr. John Jacob play with scenarios on a “weTable” they created to help community planners and local residents make decisions about development and its impact on water and climate change. The project, called Coastal CHARM, which stands for Community Health And Resource Management and also captures what residents feel about their area, is part of a Texas AgriLife Extension Service and Texas Sea Grant.

For full story, see http://agrilife.org/today/2011/07/18/coastal-charm-game/

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