Assessment Module

The Assessment Module includes guidance, prompts, tips, and resources for the following CNA components.

Component

Objective

Understanding your community’s social and physical assets and how they can be best leveraged to achieve social equity and climate resilience goals.

6. Climate Equity Analysis

Assessing key climate change risks facing your community and evaluating disproportionate impacts for marginalized populations burdened by historic and ongoing inequities, disparities, and barriers.

7. Power Mapping

Understanding how decisions impacting your community are made, including assessing who holds comfort and control in planning processes and identifying key levers for change.

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5. Asset Mapping

Rather than traditional deficit-based or problem-focused methods of describing communities, asset mapping can be used as a tool to highlight the assets and strengths of communities that should be highlighted and encouraged. The asset mapping process is one that is place-based with specific geographic boundaries; as such, your community profile should be used as a key lens for identifying community assets. As with other CNA components, this section should be revisited to identify additional assets, particularly after you complete your community’s climate equity analysis.

This section offers guidance for a rapid asset mapping process. However, the outcomes from this section should serve as a starting point for a more in-depth, participatory asset mapping process to involve community members in identifying community assets. A participatory process can also help to deepen your understanding of the true value of community assets identified in your CNA.

5.1 5.2 5.3

Identify existing community assets.

To begin identifying existing community assets, start a list of assets that you are already aware of with consideration to the following guiding questions. Build upon this list to consider additional questions related to your community’s vision and priorities.

In your community, where do residents go:
- For arts, recreation, or physical activity?
- For healthcare services?
- For healing or worshipping?
- For celebrations, ceremonies, or festivities?
- To socialize and get together with family, friends, or neighbors?
- To buy healthy food?
- During times of hardship or disaster?
In your community, what resources and services do residents use:
- To commute to school or work?
- To travel to recreational areas?
- To communicate with one another?
- To find out about upcoming community events or volunteer opportunities?
In your community, who do residents go to:
- To hear stories about the community?
- To learn about the community’s history and culture?
- To get involved in community-led projects and initiatives?

Next, build upon the assets you already identified for each of the following types of assets. As part of this process, consider other types of assets that would be beneficial to identify and how you might re-organize these categories to better suit your community and community’s vision. Part of this process may lead to combining certain asset types (e.g. combining social and cultural assets under a single type) or further segmenting a certain type (e.g. physical assets could be split into built assets and natural assets).

Physical assets include land, buildings, schools, community centers, recreational facilities, transportation systems, and other built and natural infrastructure.
Ecological assets include the community’s natural environment, resources, and living organisms, such as forests, rivers, soils, habitats, native plants, and animals.
Cultural assets are assets that have value due to their contribution to a community’s heritage, traditions, knowledge, vitality, and other cultural benefits. These can include heritage sites, public art, and cultural events, facilities, and industries.
Human assets include the skills, experiences, capacities, and passions of those who live in the community.
Social assets include the networks, organizations, and institutions, including norms of reciprocity and the mutual trust that exist among and within groups and communities. These can include neighborhood associations, faith-based groups, volunteer-led organizations, and other social networks and community-based organizations.
Economic assets include what residents produce and consume in the community, both formally and informally, through local businesses, bartering or trading relationships. Economic assets can also include financial assets or other investments that can be used for wealth accumulation rather than consumption, such as community banks or lending circles.
Institutional assets are public spaces in the community such as schools, libraries, parks, hospitals, and government entities.

Finally, organize the assets you identified into primary and secondary assets. Primary assets are the most accessible assets that are controlled by members of the community, such as residents or neighborhood associations. Secondary assets are controlled by individuals and/or organizations outside of the community, such as businesses or institutions. All assets identified should be located within the community.

Asset Type

Primary Assets

Secondary Assets

Example: Food System Assets

Community Gardens

Grocery stores

Helpful Resources:

Map your community’s assets.

Now that you’ve identified existing assets in your community, it’s time to organize these assets into a map. In an effort to minimize duplicative efforts, first start by identifying any existing asset maps for your community that you could use or leverage.

Before you begin mapping, it’s important to consider how your final map will be presented to determine the best way to categorize community assets to help your audience navigate the map. To this end, there are two main functions that most online mapping tools offer:

Layers can be toggled on and off to allow users to customize their view by enabling them to show and hide specific layers. This function is particularly useful if you identified many assets that could make your map crowded or difficult to navigate.
Colors and icons can be used to further categorize community assets and help users see similar types of assets (it can also illuminate gaps). However, the overuse of colors and icons can also make your map difficult to navigate by distracting or confusing users.

Reflect upon the asset types you identified to consider how to best structure your map layers and icons for your intended audience. This may lead to changing the way in which you categorized your assets in section 5.1. Additionally, there are multiple ways in which you can structure your map – you can choose to have one layer or multiple, or to determine your asset types by sector (e.g. healthcare vs. food), by resource type (e.g. organizations vs. public spaces), or in a different way altogether. Additionally, it is important to consider the accessibility of your map including the colors used (see this resource on how to use color blind friendly palettes).

Map Layer

Asset Type

Color

Icon

Now that the structure of your map is ready, you can start to map out your community assets. The following guidance focuses on using Google My Maps to create your community asset map since it is a free online tool that community members can access to identify additional assets. However, you may choose to use a different mapping tool to generate your asset map.

This video tutorial on Community Asset Mapping with Google’s My Maps provides step-by-step instructions on how to create a map, search for and add assets included in Google Maps’s database, and customize markers with colors and icons.

Helpful Resources:

Assess opportunities to lift up community assets and address any gaps.

Understanding what, where, and who the assets are in your community is only the first step. This section focuses on how you can begin to connect these dots and identify ways in which you can best leverage and uplift your community’s assets to achieve your vision for climate resilience and social equity. Different approaches will likely be needed to leverage primary and secondary assets due to where power and control over these assets lie.

Identify up to 3 primary and secondary assets in your community to consider ways in which these assets can be further leveraged. This is a time to be big and bold.

How could the asset be used in different ways beyond its primary purpose to meet other community needs and/or advance your vision?
How could marginalized members of your community access and utilize this asset more easily and effectively?
What are the unique strengths of this asset (e.g. amount of space, location, reach, etc.)?

The table below includes an example for a community garden and a grocery store.

#

Enhancing Primary Assets

Enhancing Secondary Assets

Community garden on ____ street
Accessible plots for elderly, youth, and disabled community members; plant communal fruit trees; add an outdoor kitchen for cooking demonstrations; host communal events

Grocery store on ____ street
Public art installations; parking lot retrofits for shade trees, green space, bike racks, or parklets; partnerships with local farmers and vendors; programs for low-income customers.

Take some time to translate your big ideas into concrete steps that could be taken to bring your ideas to life. These strategies will be revisited in a future CNA section.

Who else needs to be involved? Are there any partnerships that could be cultivated?
What types of resources are needed?
How can nature-based solutions enhance existing assets?

Finally, review your community asset map to identify any critical gaps. Some common gaps in marginalized communities due to chronic under-investment from institutions include accessible, affordable, and culturally competent establishments and services for:

Healthy food options
Healthcare
Alternative modes of transportation
Parks and recreation

6. Climate Equity Analysis

This section is focused on assessing key climate change risks facing your community and evaluating the disproportionate impacts for marginalized populations burdened by historic and ongoing inequities, disparities, and barriers.

A comprehensive vulnerability assessment is a rather extensive, technical, and time-consuming process. The guidance provided in this section modifies the recommended process for assessing vulnerability in the State’s Adaptation Planning Guide to equip community leaders with a sufficient understanding of climate risks and vulnerabilities to advance their climate equity visions.

Additionally, this section will provide high-level guidance on utilizing Cal-Adapt as a key tool for understanding how climate change might affect your community.

6.1 6.2 6.3

Assess your community’s exposure to climate change impacts.

In order to help communities plan and prepare for climate change, numerous research studies have been and continue to be conducted to understand how climate change impacts could worsen over time. These studies result in models that look at observed historical data, recent trends, and other factors (like population growth) to create future scenarios and projections.

Start by revisiting your region’s report from California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment. Based on the report’s key findings and your community’s lived experiences, identify up to three key climate impacts to narrow the scope of your CNA.

Priority Climate Impacts

Explore Cal-Adapt’s charts, maps, and data to gain a clearer understanding of the state of current climate impacts and how they will worsen over time. Start by using the Local Climate Change Snapshot tool:

Search for your community by entering an address, county, city, or census tract and click the “Generate Snapshot” button.
Select different climate indicators on the Temperature, Precipitation, and Wildfire tabs to see how local impacts may be experienced.
Capture climate projections for your community (sample table on the next page focuses on the Extreme Heat Days indicator for Sacramento, CA).

As you reflect on the results of your community’s local climate change snapshot, determine the scenarios to use as part of your CNA. The table below includes projections for both medium and high emission scenarios, mid-century and end-century timeframes, and 30-year averages and ranges (for Extreme Heat Days in Sacramento, CA). To simplify your climate analysis, focusing on mid-century averages under a high emission scenario, as the worst-case scenario to plan for, may be helpful for your CNA. More details about climate projections can be found here.

Extreme Heat Days

30yr Average

30yr Range

Baseline (1961-1990)
Observed History

4 days

3-5 days

Mid-Century (2035-2064)
Medium Emissions (RCP 4.5)

16 days

9-25 days

Mid-Century (2035-2064)
High Emissions (RCP 8.5)

20 days

11-33 days

End-Century (2070-2099)
Medium Emissions (RCP 4.5)

21 days

10-39 days

End-Century (2070-2099)
High Emissions (RCP 8.5)

40 days

23-68 days

Continue using Cal-Adapt to explore climate change projections for your community, focusing on the priority climate impacts you identified. Consider downloading graphics and capturing screenshots of models to include visual aids in your CNA that demonstrate the scale and pace of how different climate change effects will accelerate and worsen over time.

Ultimately, this exercise should help you gain a clearer understanding of how climate effects are projected to change in your community and will help to inform the next two sections.

While there are many tools that generate local, down-scaled data for climate change effects, these tools can have a steep learning curve, and be highly technical. If you face challenges in navigating these tools, consider watching a pre-recorded demonstration of the tool and/or contacting tool providers for additional guidance.

Helpful Resources:

Assess your community’s adaptive capacity.

Now that you have a clearer understanding of how climate change effects are expected to change over time, consider what and how different sectors and aspects of your community will be impacted. Describe how the priority climate impacts you identified will impact different sectors by drawing from past community input and findings from your region’s California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment report. You can also draw from any prior engagement efforts focused on identifying what has not been working well as a helpful bridge. For example, using a climate lens, the absence of sidewalks and bike lanes combined with flooding would lead to additional safety issues and stress on a community. A lack of sick leave and hazard pay for farm workers combined with extreme heat and wildfire smoke could create dangerous and unjust work conditions.

You can start by identifying the three most relevant sectors to examine further. Additional sectors can be examined as you continue refining your vision and strategies and as you continue to engage your organization, partners, and community members. Some sectors that you might consider include, but are not limited to, the following:

Arts and Culture
Biodiversity and Habitat
Economy
Energy
Food Systems
Housing
Natural Resources
Public Health
Transportation
Water Quality and Supply

Climate Impact #1

Climate Impact #2

Climate Impact #3

Sector #1

Sector #2

Sector #3

Adaptive capacity is the ability to withstand, adjust to, or take advantage of opportunities presented by a significant change or disruption. This includes the adaptive capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, ecosystems, built infrastructure, the economy, and other functions, services, and systems that will be impacted by climate change.

For each of the climate impacts you identified, conduct a high-level assessment of your community’s current adaptive capacity by identifying existing resources or qualities that support your community’s climate resilience. Additionally, consider key gaps that hinder your community’s adaptive capacity that need to be addressed in order to protect community members. Some questions to consider:

What existing physical, natural, and social assets help to protect your community from climate change impacts?
Are these assets accessible for all community members? If not, where do you see key gaps?
How did your community respond to past extreme heat, flood, drought, and/or wildfire events? Were there any resources that helped your community stay safe? Were there any resources that were needed but unavailable?

Examples for extreme heat and wildfires are provided below:

Climate Impact

Adaptive Capacity

Key Gaps

Extreme Heat:

Sufficient shade trees along main corridors

Some neighborhoods are tree-deficient

Wildfires:

Social media networks are used effectively to communicate and coordinate evacuations

Challenges for some community members to get supplies and groceries

Helpful Resources:

Evaluate how existing inequities will be exacerbated by climate impacts and pollution.

In addition to how climate change effects are impacting and will continue to impact communities, many communities are also burdened by pollution sources that fuel climate change. Communities that experience high levels of pollution are often the same communities that experience greater exposure to extreme heat, drought, flooding, and other climate change effects.

CalEnviroScreen is a screening methodology that many State agencies use to identify California communities that are disproportionately burdened by multiple sources of pollution.

Use the Draft CalEnviroScreen 4.0 tool to identify the percentile ranking(s) of the census tract(s) represented in your defined community relative to other census tracts. The table below includes overall percentiles and a sampling of indicators for exposures and environmental effects, which you can modify to remove or add indicators based on your needs and community’s priorities.

Percentiles

<<Census Tract>>

Overall CalEnviroScreen:

Overall Pollution Burden:

Overall Population Characteristics:

Ozone:

Particulate Matter 2.5:

Pesticides:

Cleanup Sites:

Hazardous Waste:

Building upon your evaluation of how climate impacts will exacerbate racial inequities in section 2.1 and your findings from sections 6.1 and 6.2, consider how pollution can further exacerbate harm to your community.

Pollution Sources

How Climate Impacts May Worsen Impacts on Communities Already Struggling with High Pollution

Traffic Density, Diesel PM, Ozone, and PM 2.5, Toxic Releases:

Drinking Water, Groundwater Threats, and Impaired Water Bodies:

Pesticides:

Cleanup Sites, Hazardous Waste, and Solid Waste:

Lead from Housing:

Helpful Resources:

7. Power Mapping

A foundational element of advancing your community’s vision for climate equity is understanding how decisions impacting your community are made in order to identify key levers for change. By power mapping, you can understand where power is currently concentrated in order to shape a world where decision-makers can be in power with communities, rather than continue to have power over communities.

This section aims to guide you through the assessment of the socio-political environment you are operating within to identify targeted opportunities for direct engagement in existing processes, as well as opportunities to advocate for more equitable and inclusive policy-making, planning, engagement, and investments that address community needs. It also focuses on ways in which you can work towards your vision in a way that promotes community building as opposed to increasing contention and divisiveness. As such, a key aspect of shifting power focuses on building relationships and uplifting the assets and strengths of your community and allies.

The final product of this section can be a visual representation of your power map or an organized list of key institutions and decision-makers. The later subsections will also guide you through a process for identifying your agenda, allies and opposers, and strategies to advance your vision and agenda for climate equity.

7.1 7.2 7.3

Identify key institutions making decisions that affect your community.

There are many types of decisions that affect a community. At this stage, focus on formal decisions that are made through policies and plans that inform an institution’s priorities, the investments they make, the strategies they implement, and the regulations they enforce.

Reflect upon your community profile from section 1, your community’s priorities and vision from section 4, and your climate equity analysis from section 6 to narrow the scope of this section by focusing on the most relevant institutions and decision-makers. As you conduct research to identify institutions and decision-makers, it may be helpful to compile a list of online links as a quick reference guide, such as webpages for the institution’s meeting schedule, contact form or staff directory, and engagement opportunities.

The table on the next page lists a sampling of institutions that may be of interest to consider as part of your CNA; however, some of these may not be applicable or as relevant to your community vision. Conversely, there may be other types of institutions and decision-makers that would be beneficial to consider that are not reflected in the table.

Recognizing that many of these institutional decision-makers may be difficult to reach, indicate key contacts that could serve as a conduit, such as city staff.

Institution

Decision-Maker(s)

Key Contact(s)

California State Senate

Senator(s)

California State Assembly

Assemblymembers(s)

City

Mayor, Councilmembers, City Manager

City Department (e.g. Sustainability, Planning)

Department Head/Director, Managers

City Boards, Committees, and Commissions

Chairs, Members

County

Board of Supervisors

County Department (e.g. Public Health)

Department Head/Director, Managers

County Boards, Committees, and Commissions

Chairs, Members

Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO)

Executive Director/CEO, Board of Directors

Council of Government (COG)

Executive Director/CEO, Board of Directors

Investor-Owned Utility (IOU)

CEO, Vice Presidents, Directors, Managers

Municipal or Publicly-Owned Utilities

General Manager/CEO, Board of Directors, Department Directors, Managers

Air Quality Management District (AQMD) / Air Pollution Control District (APCD)

Executive Director, Board of Directors, Directors, Managers

Next, identify strategies to engage with the institutions and decision-makers you identified. These may include attending council or board meetings to provide public comment, regularly engaging your key contact to strengthen relationships, or even subscribing to email listservs to stay informed as an initial step.

Helpful Resources:

Identify opportunities to influence decision-making.

Next, identify existing policies, resolutions, ballot measures, and plans that are relevant to your community’s vision. These can serve as helpful levers for advancing your vision by demonstrating how your vision supports the achievement of the goals outlined in adopted policies and plans. Conversely, it can help you identify specific policies and plans that hinder progress towards your vision to inform future engagement and advocacy efforts.

The table below includes a sampling of common plans, as well as certain resolutions and ordinances that an increasing number of cities have been adopting. As you identify local plans and as such information is available, indicate the update schedule to inform engagement opportunities.

Institution

Policy/Plan

Adopted

Link

City

General Plan*

<<year>>

City

Capital Improvement Plan

<<year>>

City

Climate Action Plan

<<year>>

City

Climate Adaptation or Resilience Plan*

<<year>>

City

Urban Forestry Plan

<<year>>

City

Climate Emergency Declaration Resolution

<<year>>

City

Electrification or Decarbonization Ordinance

<<year>>

County

Local Hazard Mitigation Plan*

<<year>>

County

Emergency Plan*

<<year>>

MPO/COG

Sustainable Communities Strategy/Regional Transportation Plan

<<year>>

AQMD/APCD

AB-617 Community Air Protection Program Plans and Reports

<<year>>

Utility

Integrated Resource Plan

<<year>>

Utility

Wildfire Mitigation Plan

<<year>>

*Recent legislation mandates certain planning requirements that may be of interest. This includes SB-379, which requires cities and counties to address climate adaptation and resiliency strategies in their general plan safety elements, local hazard mitigation plans, or climate adaptation plan; SB-1000, which adds Environmental Justice as a required element in general plans (a great resource to check out is the SB-1000 Implementation Toolkit developed by the California Environmental Justice Alliance and PlaceWorks); and SB-160, which requires counties to integrate cultural competence into their emergency plans.

To identify existing policies and plans, consider the following steps and resources:

For city policies, ordinances, and resolutions, check your city’s website, including webpages for citywide policies, city records, or for specific topics such as climate change.
For existing plans, check your city, county, MPO/COG, utility, and special district websites. You may find these documents under specific departments, such as Sustainability or Planning, or on a dedicated webpage for climate change. Another way to locate existing plans can be through the California Climate Action Portal or the ICARP Adaptation Clearinghouse, or by using Google to search for your city’s General Plan, Climate Action Plan, Climate Adaptation Plan, Urban Forestry Plan, and other relevant plans.
- As you research existing plans, indicate plans that are currently being updated or scheduled to be updated to inform engagement opportunities.
For County measures, use Ballotpedia: Scroll down to the “California counties” section and select the link for your county. The county page includes subpages split out by year. You can then scan for relevant measures that were adopted (indicated by a green check).

In addition to identifying existing pathways to inform decision-making, consider other advocacy efforts that can help to distribute power more equitably and elevate marginalized voices. These strategies will inform future CNA components in the Strategy & Timeline module. Some examples include:

Socializing the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership to increase buy-in and advocating for formal changes to an institution’s community engagement procedures.
Advocating for the establishment of a standing Citizen Advisory Board with meaningful decision-making power to inform an institution’s priorities, plans, and investments.
Advocating for the creation of an Office of Equity to oversee and guide agency departments to ensure the prioritization and involvement of marginalized communities in decision-making.

Helpful Resources:

Power-Mapping and Identifying Targets for Organizing (YouTube)
Grassroots Legislative Advocacy Training: Power Mapping (YouTube)

Create a power map of decision-makers and influencers.

Now that you have a clearer understanding of key institutions and formal decision-making bodies affecting your community, identify ally and opposition groups that influence decision-making. These groups should be considered influencers since they do not have formal authority to make decisions themselves. Instead, they exercise their ability to exert influence on decision-makers.

Ally groups are organized groups that are supportive of, or aligned with, your community’s vision for climate equity. Start with the list of collaborators and allies you identified in section 3.1 and consider other groups that influence decision-makers, particularly advocacy groups.

Opposition groups are organized groups that support the status quo or have conflicting agendas that can hinder the achievement of your vision. Consider special interest groups and associations that often lobby against your agenda.

Identify other organized groups that may not have a specific agenda, but demonstrate their ability to influence decision-makers, such as media outlets.

With your community’s vision for climate equity in mind, create a visual power map based on level of influence or power and level of support or opposition. You can start with a simple matrix that you can continue to expand upon as you deepen your understanding of the players and influencers involved, as well as the relationships between institutions and their influencers.

A PowerPoint file for the below power map template has been created for you to modify and use. Feel free to use this template or another power mapping tool.

Helpful Resources: