survey , initiated a commercial entity survey , and conducted interviews with key stakeholders in the Kiawah community . The results of this work verified that property owners are concerned about the impact of sea-level rise , climate change , and flooding on their quality of life . Property owners felt the many situations involving flooding were of equal importance and described a holistic approach to address these issues on Kiawah . The feedback from this community engagement facilitated identifying threshold areas , which will be further defined in the upcoming year .
While this work is just one phase of an overall plan development project , key recommendations for the town and
KICA include :
••
Accept and refine the threshold conditions that resulted from this effort .
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Commit to developing a fully functioning AMP and proceed with the endeavors they need to accomplish to establish this and ensure that this plan is institutionalized on behalf of the Kiawah community .
••
Continue to collect information on and improve our understanding of the Kiawah environment , including supporting research programs that add to our knowledge base .
••
Monitor and annually report critical information to the Kiawah community and other stakeholders .
“ Coastal management is characterized by multiple and often competing management objectives , restricted management authorities and capabilities , dynamic ecological and physical systems , and uncertain responses to management actions . Therefore , management decisions on Kiawah must involve predicting how ecological and physical systems will respond to interventions and identifying what options are available , what outcome is appropriate , how much risk can be tolerated , and how to choose the best approach . Adaptive Management offers a structured and iterated approach for developing mitigation efforts and evaluating performance in this complex decision-making environment . I believe this first phase of AMP development was successful in gauging the community ’ s support of such a program and determining what areas of concern are immediately apparent . Overall , this is a significant step in the right direction to improve the resilience of our community .”
— KICA Resilience Specialist Lucas Hernandez
View the task force ’ s report to KICA ’ s board , a breakdown of their work , and a video of their presentation at https ://
kica . us / news .
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Photo by Jack Kotz
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