TOOLKIT
The Working With Nature (WWN) process is designed to guide small-to-medium- sized municipalities through a process of identifying hazards and risks associated with flood and drought, understanding the natural infrastructure assets that could help mitigate those risks, and then creating a prioritized action plan to maximize the effectiveness of their natural infrastructure assets.
This Toolkit was created so that municipalities can guide themselves through the process in a cost-efficient and effective way. All the tools are laid out below, but you can also download the entire Toolkit as a Zip file. This includes both PDF and MSWord versions of all documents.
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It may look complicated at first, but all the pieces are colour-coded, and the Getting Started section includes a guide to the colour-coding.
The Creative Commons licence means you are free to use these materials for your municipality without restriction.
The WWN process could be initiated at any level but needs to be taken on as an official project of the municipality. A team and point person need to be identified, and preliminary background research undertaken to determine hazards and risks
The WWN Workbook is the starting point and the ‘final’ product. Participants work through the process of populating the workbook. When complete, the workbook can be exported as a stand-alone plan, or it can be used to inform several supporting plans / polices
'Workbook' Tools
Workshop One has two purposes: convene the team, and start populating the workbook. Tasks include articulating the municipality's goals, clarifying the hazards/risks, and identifying the supporting natural infrastructure.
'Workshop One' Tools
Workshop Two is all about Actions. The Team articulates and details the informed Actions that the municipality will take to better employ natural infrastructure in support of flood and drought mitigation. Next steps are discussed, and timelines finalized.
'Workshop Two' Tools
Prioritization involves circulating the entire list of proposed Actions to all participants, having individuals score each Action on a set of effectiveness and feasibility criteria, collating all the responses, and generating a rank-order list of priority Actions.
'Prioritization' Tools
Tools
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Prioritization (MSExcel spreadsheet)
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Criteria Weighting – Participant (MSExcel spreadsheet)
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Criteria Weighting – Team Leader (MSExcel spreadsheet)
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Action Averaging (MSExcel spreadsheet)
Resources
At this summary meeting, the Team plots how to convert the workbook into policy-based direction, determining the best form for the Plan to take, ensuring the Plan’s sustainability, and planning for monitoring its effectiveness.
'Policy Development' Tools
Resources