Guide to Vulnerability Assessment and Local Early Action Planning (VA-LEAP)

This guide is designed to support a community-based or local level management and adaptation planning process. It can be used to explore the non-climate change and climate change threats within a defined geographic area or community in which there is a clear governing structure and decision-making process. The area can be large or small as long as the planning team involved in facilitating the process has decisionmaking authority or has the support from the governing authority of the area. For example, the area might be defined as a small coastal community that has land and sea tenure. Or, the area might be a small region of the coastline with several communities that is governed by a central agency or group. However, this tool is not designed for urbanized or densely populated areas with complex social and governance systems.