Act on Climate facilitated another community resilience mapping session hosted by the South Monash Legal Service team in Greater Dandenong in November 2024.

The session highlighted that even when there are big obstacles communities face in progressing climate adaptation, they have the knowledge on what needs to be done, and have creative ways of accessing resources. 

Many communities have people who are aware of what needs to be done, and are passionate to get started, but haven't connected with one another or found resources needed to progress their ideas. Mapping what risks your community is facing, what assets you have and any gaps that need to be addressed, is a great way to start working toward climate adaptation. 

Having appropriate and relevant climate resilience initiatives are key to keeping communities safe. Community resilience mapping helps communities to understand their unique challenges and strengths, and which climate impacts they’re most at risk from, so that they can implement appropriate solutions. It identifies the residents most at risk, where a community has strong climate resilience, and where the gaps are in its climate impact readiness.

We're offering support to anyone who wants to facilitate the activity in their own community. Check out our Community Resilience Mapping Facilitation Guide, which you can use to guide the running of your own event!

Community Resilience Mapping is used to achieve good climate resilience, through community members brainstorming strategies that keep community members safe. The session:

• Helps inform adaptation and emergency response plans & the prioritisation of time and resources
• Results in practical community-led solutions & knowledge of how can stay safe

Through identifying: 

• Exposures: various climate impacts
• Sensitivities: who/which areas most at risk
• Assets: what already in place to reduce impacts
• Adaptive Capacity: where are the gaps

This activity was adapted from the Climate Resilience Project.

Read more on what community resilience mapping is and why to do it.

Read on for more about the community resilience mapping we did at SMLS's community resilience mapping session and its outcomes.

Community Resilience Mapping with South Melbourne Legal Service and Greater Dandenong community members

The Act on Climate collective facilitated a community resilience mapping activity hosted by the South Monash Legal Service (SMLS) on the 11th of November in Springvale. The workshop was attended by the Greater Dandenong Environment Group and other members of the community. 

The session highlighted that there are many exposures for the communities, and that they currently have a lot of gaps, but also a lot of potential for solutions. The session started by brainstorming the main exposures as a large group. Once those exposures were identified, participants were put into groups based on each climate impact to focus on sensitivities, assets and adaptive capacity for the specific climate impact. 

Identified Exposures:

The main exposures that the communities brought up were the following: 

• Floods
• Storms/wind
• Heatwaves/heat island

Other exposures identified were:

• loss of biodiversity
• sea level rise
• storm surges

Participants split up into groups based on the exposure/climate impact they were most interested and focused on sensitivities, assets and gaps for that specific climate impact 

Heat

Identified Sensitivities

The people identified most at risk of heat impacts were: 

• Renters
• Low income households
• Older people
• Rough sleepers

Identified Assets

The group identified that the strengths regarding climate adaptation in their community are: 

• Business/trader networks
• Community gardens, playgrounds and water fountains
• Nature reserves
• Tree canopy cover
• Air con on public transport
• Ambulances and hospitals
• Community groups and leaders
• Faith and cultural groups
• Multilingual media
• Cool public spaces - Libraries, shopping centres, swimming pools, schools, neighbourhood houses, private resident gardens, places of worship

Adaptive Capacity

The group identified that there were several gaps in communication and education about heatwaves. Gaps were mostly around people not being kept up to date with information on heatwaves. This included:

• Exclusion of people from public forums on climate change
• People who work that can't attend daytime events
• People who speak English as a Second Language
• Anyone not on social media 
• People with disabilities who are housebound
• Children and young people
• Anyone without financial capacity 

The proposed solutions the group came up with were integrating heatwave education into various activities such as:

• BBQs (welcoming events that are culturally safe)
• Free community events  (not the converted)
• Low-cost - Berwick Akoonah Market 
• Dandenong Market 
• Dandenong show 
• Festivals - Springvale snow festival/Chinese New Year
• Community and competitive sports
• Celebrating local stories

Other solutions suggested by the group include: 

• Building regulations and accountability for landlords 
• Subsidy for energy bills
• Buy nothing group- "focus on things to keep” cool swap
• Painting dark roofs - increasing tree canopy

Flooding

Identified Sensitivities

The areas and people most at risk of flooding impacts were: 

• Houses and businesses along creeks and stormwater drains
• Douglas St Noble Park
• Hallam Rd near Hallam Station
• People on walkers/cycling paths
• People reliant on mobility scooters

Identified Assets

The group identified various assets around climate adaptation in their community including:

• Dedicated flood zones - that are not built on and preserved as wetlands
• Multicultural/demographic links in the community
• Existing creeks which are above ground
• Strong civil society -SES and CFA
• Community awareness is on the rise
• Melbourne Water occasionally stand up to development in regards to flood zone protection.
• Community awareness for some areas
• Community and Council have notified using social media
• There are assets to flooding, which include feeding the water-table, land and big old trees.

Adaptive Capacity

The group identified various gaps including:

• The SES and CFA are not resourced well enough 

• There needs to be less concrete and artificial grass- more natural land

• Not enough education 

The proposed solutions to address the gaps include:

• Community-led education
• having appropriate and updated infrastructure
• Improving street signage (e.g. "DANGER" and using pictures to convey information not just words)

Storms

Identified Sensitivities

• People that are isolated
• Trees not being managed 

Identified Assets

The group struggled to find assets as the assets they have are not being resourced adequately, but they did identify these assets:

• CFA and SES
• Strong community links (e.g. Sikh temples or other places of worship can be used to provide emergency relief) 
• 1-2 trucks for the community 
• People that are willing to put in time to volunteer and look out for community

Adaptive Capacity

As funding and resourcing assets was a key gap for this group, they focused on solutions that can be done without much funding such as: 

• Creating localised networks of safety - mapping who has agriculture and water, figure out what safety plans are and where people go in an emergency
• create a micro approach to education focused on resilience, mitigation and having a plan of action for different scenarios
• Improve communication between communities, neighbourhoods, networks and services
• Advocating to the government for funding for the above, and more funding for emergency services
• Empower residents that have knowledge to share that with others
• Take responsibility locally 

The community members found that there are a lot of gaps they need to address to be better climate resilient, but doing the session, coming together in their spare time, they also realised that the people in the room, and those in their lives, are their best asset. People coming together, to share what they know, and use their brains to collectively come up with solutions, is what we need to adapt to the new reality of increasing climate change impacts. 

Communities may not have the most resources or be well funded, but they care about one another, and know its in their best interest to act. This willingness to act and to be creative, is what is most important when adapting to climate impacts, as we know we can't wait for the government to save us. 

What Next?

The Greater Dandenong Environment Group extended an invitation to anyone that lives in the area to join them and work on climate adaptation initiatives. The SMLS also sent out an email to all of the participants so they can connect with one another to work on things together. 

Want help making this happen in your community?

We're offering support to anyone who wants to facilitate the activity in their own community. Check out our Community Resilience Mapping Facilitation Guide, which you can use to guide the running of your own event!

Uncertain about running a Community Resilience Mapping session in your community? We're happy to help! Contact us, either Aleesha Hanczakowski on [email protected] or Vicky Ellmore on [email protected], and we can answer any questions and walk you through running the event yourself, or we can come facilitate it ourselves, if possible.

Reach out for support to run Community Resilience Mapping in your community!

Stay tuned for further updates from Friends of the Earth's Act on Climate collective as we campaign for community-led climate adaptation by signing up for campaign updates here.

If you haven't already, please add your name to the call for a Victorian Community Climate Adaptation Fund. We need community-led climate adaptation that is continuously and adequately funded. This funding will enable communities to fulfil their plans to build resilient communities in a changing climate and keep those most at risk safe.