Community Resiliency and Climate Change - Denver, Colorado

These two images depict how Denver has changed over 90 years and how community resilience has changed.

Historic Denver 1929 to 1933

Present Day Denver Late 2010s

Between the two photos, we can see a dramatic increase in population and buildings over the course of roughly 90 years. Further, we can see the increase in infrastructure such as roads and sidewalks. Note that we can see the capital building, the gold dome, in both pictures. This building helps us see how much the city has truly changed from a small city to a sprawling capital. Since there are now more people to manage, community resilience has decreased over the decades. However, access to communities with well-built infrastructure make the community's resilience stronger.

The previous images gave us a visual of how community resilience has changed. These maps put numbers and statistics to those observations. On the left, we have a map of population growth from Math Population Growth. On the right, we have a map of census data from ACS Population and Housing Basics.

As mentioned before, knowing how risk factors change over time helps us predict how well a community is prepared for hazards and disasters. Another way to grasp these changes in Denver over time is with census data. Data was gathered from the American Community Survey. The most current data with the most detail is from 2020. This is when the last census was done. As for historical data, 2000 data was used. This is another census year and will provide our analysis with a time frame of 20 years.

Education level is important to understand community resilience because the more educated an individual is, the more likely they can obtain employment and make money. Between 2000 and 2020 we can see an increase in the amount of people who have less than a high school diploma. This is further reflected in people with bachelor's or higher, which decreased over the 20-year period. For the most part, the percentage of people with a high school diploma or some college remained the same. This means in general, based on education, Denver is more at risk of disasters in 2020 than in 2000.

One risk factor mentioned above is income. From this table, we can see all earning categories have increased from 2000 to 2020. However, we must consider the inflation rate between these two-time frames. According to this  Average Inflation Website , the United States has a 3.10 average inflation rate between 1933 and 2020. Despite the inflation rate, mean earning has nearly doubled while public assistance income barely increased at all. This means income increases are unevenly distributed among the income categories and people with public assistance income are the most at risk to hazards.

Lastly, how a household is structured affects how that household will respond to hazards and disasters. From 2000 to 2010 family households decreased by 3.2%. Meaning, more people are living alone. This has benefits and drawbacks. In the case of an emergency, a single person living in a single household would only have to worry about themselves. However, having more people in a household can have the benefit of teamwork. People can help each other manage the emergency.

Data Citation and Links from American Community Survey:

 2000 Data 

 2020 Data 

This map represents how climate change will affect the world. Though this map is zoomed out, the point in the SW corner represents climate statistics for Denver.

The United States Census Bureau provided a map of community resistance which they define as "Community resilience is the capacity of individuals and households to absorb, endure, and recover from the health, social, and economic impacts of a disaster such as a hurricane or pandemic"( 2021 Community Resilience Estimates Map ). This image depicts Denver on this map. The darker the color, the increase in risk factors for that community.

The central region of Denver has differing percentages of people with 3 or more risk factors: 0-19% in the south and 19-30% in the north. In the south, we can see that 15.38% (+/- 9.66%) of residents have 3+ risk factors. In the north, there is 23.50% (+/-12.22%) of people with a 3+ risk factor. The difference in percentage can be due to the increase in population as you get closer to the capital.

CP 8.5, ACS, and RAPT are models that help us gauge risk factors associated with community risk.

RCP are trajectories of greenhouse gas concentrations used for climate modeling in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Assessment Report ( GRID-Arendal ). The numbers associated with RCP are 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5. These numbers, or radiative forcing values, predict global temperature increase and extreme weather increase by 2100. Radiative forcing is the "heating effect caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere" ( EPA.gov ). Therefore, these predictive values are important to fully understand the risk factors for a region. As RCP increases, we can expect community risk to follow suit.

The ACS tracks changes taking place in communities for local officials, leaders, and communities ( census.gov ). This data consists of social, economic, housing, and demographic data. Most data is represented with statistics and percentages. We used this data because it is a good representation of specific risk factors that determine community resilience. For example, this data includes poverty ratios, population sizes, and number of people with disabilities.

The RAPT is a map service that helps community managers plan for "emergency preparedness, response, and recovery" ( fema.maps.arcgis.com ). It includes a county population, a FEMA Community Resilience Challenges Index Percentile, and FEMA CRCI(Community Resilience Challenges Index) Indicators. Community leaders use this tool because it helps people understand their communities. From peer-reviewed research to demographics, infrastructure, and weather, RAPT is an easy-to-use map interface full of information. It also includes analysis tools, the ability to add data, and the ability to print or download data ( fema.gov ). All of these resources help community managers get the big picture of their region so they can respond appropriately to hazards and disasters.