ABSTRACT
Socio-ecological resilience requires understanding adaptation at broader scales and involves multi-level and multi-sectoral networks to support the political, legal, and economic frameworks of effective governance. Focusing on socio-ecological resilience offers a way to pursue adaptation in a whole-of- government and whole-of-community approach that avoids multi-jurisdictional and multi-sectoral conflict. This chapter discusses the case study of one institutional arrangement – the Hampton Roads Intergovernmental Sea Level Rise (SLR) and Resilience Pilot Planning Project. The Pilot Project sought to overcome scale mismatch through a two-year, whole-of-government and whole-of-community effort involving multiple municipal governments, state and federal agencies, academic institutions, non-profit organizations, businesses, civic, and neighborhood organizations, and individual residents. The case demonstrates how the gap between policy intentions and policy output is widened by goal ambiguity, role confusion, and resource inadequacies. The purpose of the Pilot Project was to establishing a whole-of-government and whole-of-community organizational framework to coordinate SLR preparedness and resilience planning.
