On January 30th, 2016 stakeholders met at Rock Creek Church Hall in Chance for the first workshop of the Integrated Coastal Resiliency Assessment (ICRA). The workshop was convened to share future sea-level change scenarios with stakeholders, compare these maps with local knowledge of vulnerabilities, and use this information to prioritize areas for the ICRA initiative. At the workshop, Dr. Mike Scott (Eastern Shore GIS Coooperative - Salisbury University) gave a presentation on the range of drivers propelling sea-level changes in the region and shared several sea-level change scenarios, which he generated using the HAZUS computer model. These scenarios showed what the Deal Island Peninsula is predicted to look like between now and 2050 under different storm conditions and sea-level changes.  After Dr. Scott's presentation, Sasha Land and Mike Paolisso led group discussions to identify 3-5 areas that stakeholders believed best fit a set of criteria developed by the Project Team for identifying vulnerable locations. At the end of the workshop, the breakout groups reconvened to come to agreement on five focus areas to target in future ICRA activities. 

Outcomes from this workshop were shared with the Deal Island Peninsula communities on February 3rd at a Community Conversation meeting, held at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on Deal Island. Dr. Scott again presented the sea-level change information and scenarios. Participants were given the opportunity to review the five prioritized areas selected by stakeholders on January 30th, and provide feedback. The meeting was very well attended, and we received a lot of great input, which was used to refine the boundaries of the five areas in preparation for commencing Phase 2.