The National Adaptation Forum team developed special session topics to prioritize specific areas that are becoming increasingly imperative for the growth of the adaptation field. In addition to selecting a Topic Area for your submission, you are invited to also indicate if your proposal would be a good match for one of these special sessions.
There are 10 Special Session topic areas. Please scroll down to read the full descriptions.
- Is Adaptation Delivering? Monitoring & Evaluation to Advance the Field
- Addressing the Money Problem: Funding Adaptation
- Building Climate-Resilient Health Systems Through Adaptation
- Where Do We Go From Here? The Politics and People of Managed Retreat
- Catalyzing Behavior Change For Climate Adaptation
- Bridging Governance for Climate Adaptation: Tribal, State, and Local Collaboration in a Changing Political Climate
- Adaptation From the Land to the Sea: Addressing Unique Challenges for Rural & Island Communities
- Protecting the Future of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Through Adaptation
- Equipping Ourselves For the Path Ahead Through Practical Training and Workforce Development
- Navigating the Muddy Waters of a Federal Maelstrom
Is Adaptation Delivering? Monitoring & Evaluation to Advance the Field
How is monitoring and evaluation being integrated into adaptation projects to map the success and failures of our efforts? How can we build upon each other’s knowledge in the field to improve future adaptation efforts?
How will we move forward unless we know what’s working and what’s not? To ensure that climate adaptation efforts are effective, the field must strengthen its use of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to track progress, assess outcomes, and guide future action. Submitted proposals should explore how M&E is being integrated into adaptation projects to evaluate both successes and failures, and to support evidence-based decision-making in the adaptation field. We welcome proposals that showcase robust examples of M&E in practice, including insights on methods, implementation challenges and opportunities, and outcomes. Proposals can also consider how to monitor equity metrics to ensure that we are advancing accountability. Help us answer the question: Is adaptation delivering, how do we know, and how do we share what we have learned with others?
Addressing the Money Problem: Funding Adaptation
How will adaptation practitioners respond to the gap in current funding? How can collaboration within networks improve financial stability?
One of the greatest challenges facing adaptation practitioners is securing adequate and sustained financing for critical adaptation projects. The ongoing withdrawal or reduction of funding sources has left many practitioners without the resources they need to implement and advance their work. For this session, we are accepting proposals that highlight creative, innovative, and effective methods for financing adaptation projects. Proposals should explore real-world examples of creative or novel mechanisms supporting the financing of adaptation projects. Proposals can include collaborative financing models between the public and private sectors. Proposals that explicitly address the historical and ongoing barriers faced by underserved and underrepresented communities in accessing funding for adaptation efforts will be given high priority.
Building Climate-Resilient Health Systems Through Adaptation
What innovations have been made in the field to improve the integration of climate adaptation into public health and other healthcare efforts and planning? How is adaptation being used to address a growing mental health crisis?
With climate change increasingly disrupting public and other healthcare systems, health professionals are increasingly addressing the linkages between climate change and the health and safety of communities. Legacies of systemic injustice and marginalization means that climate change further exacerbates existing inequities in healthcare delivery and outcomes. This session will highlight the intersection between the health sector and adaptation strategies. Proposals should feature innovative strides towards climate adaptation in the health sector. Submissions are encouraged to explore how adaptation is being integrated into public and other health systems, planning processes, and infrastructure, particularly through tools, frameworks, or cross-sectoral approaches. Proposals can also consider how climate-related disruptions are impacting health systems, and how health professionals are responding to them. Proposals should also address how adaptation strategies can prioritize and center the voices and leadership of vulnerable communities in the health sector.
Where Do We Go From Here? The Politics and People of Managed Retreat
How might policy and urban planners approach managed retreat? What are some of the complexities in managing retreats and prioritizing community resilience?
The effects of climate change have already made certain neighborhoods uninhabitable, forcing communities to move and leave everything they know behind. The process of managed retreat can disrupt social networks and alter the fabric of community life, with significant implications for collective resilience to climate-related disasters. Many communities that are tightly interwoven can experience disruptions and fragmentation of their relationships with one another if managed retreat is not thoughtfully and equitably planned. Submissions for this session should explore the complexities of managed retreat as experienced on the ground, particularly through the lens of lived experience, cultural ties, and place-based identity. Proposals should also investigate the challenges for policy, political governance, and ensuring that managed retreat processes center equity and the needs of frontline and historically marginalized communities. Proposals can also explore the complexities of climate-related migration receiving communities.
Catalyzing Behavior Change For Climate Adaptation
How do we move people from being knowledgeable about climate adaptation to acting on this information? What are examples of drivers of both individual and community-level behavior change?
Across the United States, people are increasingly experiencing the tangible effects of climate change in their daily lives, though not all may recognize or connect these impacts directly to the broader climate crisis. To spark collective action within communities, there has to be a shift from awareness of climate change to taking action through climate adaptation solutions. Knowledge is an important step toward climate action, but how do we motivate individuals and communities to move beyond awareness and into sustained, collective action? A range of knowledge forms drive human behavior, not simply reason or intellectual information exchange in isolation (e.g., individual values, cultural norms, emotional intelligence, instinct, intuition, institutional etc.). Proposals for this session will focus on effective ways to initiate behavior change to catalyze action across communities. Proposals can focus on outreach strategies, community engagement, education, and effective communication approaches, particularly those that have demonstrated success in mobilizing climate adaptation at the local level.
Bridging Governance for Climate Adaptation: Tribal, State, and Local Collaboration in a Changing Political Climate
How are different levels of governance planning to continue adaptation in the current political climate? How are collaborations between the different levels of government enhancing adaptation efforts?
Safeguarding communities in the face of accelerating climate risks requires coordinated adaptation planning and policy implementation across tribal, state, and local levels of government. Proposals should address policy innovation that advances climate resilience and reflects context-specific needs and capacities. Submissions are encouraged to examine how better cooperation between these different levels of government can amplify the reach, equity, and effectiveness of adaptation efforts, especially in a fragmented or politically complex policy landscape. Proposals that reflect on the challenges and opportunities of continuing adaptation amidst shifting political priorities are especially welcome.
Adaptation From the Land to the Sea: Addressing Unique Challenges for Rural & Island Communities
What are some of the successes and challenges of adaptation in rural and island communities?
With much of the attention for adaptation diverted to urban communities, adaptation in rural and island communities often gets less attention. This session will highlight innovative (can include new or ancestral/cultural practices) and context-specific adaptation efforts led by rural and island communities and examine some of the unique challenges these communities face. Proposals can explore successful adaptation strategies, community-led initiatives, and place-based solutions in rural and island communities, and provide lessons learned that can be translated to broader adaptation planning and practice.
Protecting the Future of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Through Adaptation
How is adaptation being incorporated into how we manage, govern, and steward ecosystems and ensure biodiversity protection?
The foundation of every aspect of our industries and livelihoods is dependent on how we protect the future of our ecosystems. However, with unprecedented climate change, adaptation practitioners must evolve their management approaches to meet the challenges of managing critical resources in a changing climate. This session will explore how practitioners working to conserve ecosystems and biodiversity are embedding climate adaptation into their practices. Proposals can include both successes and setbacks, with emphasis on lessons learned and practical insights gained through implementation. Proposals should feature efforts that contribute to advancing knowledge and practice in climate-informed protection strategies.
Equipping Ourselves For the Path Ahead Through Practical Training and Workforce Development
What kinds of training and tools will best equip adaptation practitioners with skills necessary to improve their skills? What will be the building blocks for workforce development in the adaptation field?
As the field of climate adaptation evolves, continuous learning and skills development are essential for practitioners to remain effective in addressing emerging challenges. This session focuses on showcasing practical training opportunities for adaptation professionals. Proposals should highlight training programs, tools, and other workplace development strategies that are enhancing the work of adaptation professionals and building the next generation of adaptation leaders.
Navigating the muddy waters of a federal maelstrom
With significant changes at one level of government, the entire adaptation field is experiencing the cascading effects of a withdrawal of leadership and direct attacks on climate professionals. How will adaptation professionals navigate the changing currents and ensure that adaptation efforts move forward not backwards? Proposals in this session can explore:
- How adaptation professionals are adapting to this new reality and how they are challenging the current systems at play that are adamantly trying to set us back decades in our work.
- How direct attacks on databases, important tools, and bodies of information leave many practitioners and communities in the dark.
- How to support and prevent the loss of information and how to ensure communities can access important climate data to assist them in making informed decisions.