Decreasing Vulnerability for Maine's Beach-Based Business Community - NERRS/NSC(NERRS Science Collaborative)

Using a collaborative approach that engages researchers and local business owners, the project team will adapt a tourism-resilience index for southern Maine businesses. After pilot-testing, a broader community of local business leaders will complete facilitated self-assessments in Kennebunkport and Kennebunk, Maine. Participating businesses will be given their custom tourism-resilience index, or score, along with a set of suggested steps they can take to increase their resiliency to natural disasters. The project team will meet with these same businesses one year later to reassess and measure progress. The project team will aggregate the indices of participating businesses and a summary of lessons learned will be shared with southern Maine chambers of commerce, municipalities and climate adaptation professionals. Strategies for adapting and implementing the tourism resilience index in different regions will also be shared with business communities, climate adaptation professionals, and the National Estuarine Research Reserve system. Project results will highlight common gaps and barriers businesses share when it comes to increasing their resilience to natural disaster. This science transfer project was funded by NOAA through the National Estuarine Research Reserve System Science Collaborative to promote the use of science. It did not produce any new data.

[
  "https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inportserve/waf/noaa/nos/ocm/dmp/pdf/47685.pdf"
]