Near real-time survey analytics pipeline for adaptive community engagement

Keywords: community engagement, data integration, decision support, planning
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Community engagement through surveys, focus groups, and other methods is a common approach for local governments and community-serving organizations to ensure their missions align with the needs of the people they serve. As climate change, urbanization, social inequality and other trends increase and interact, communities are facing new shocks and stressors. Community engagement that proactively includes all people, particularly those marginalized or excluded from past policies and plans, will be increasingly important for equitably delivering critical services. Policymakers and planners benefit from having near real-time geodata relating engagement performance, the human landscape, and demographics to inform decision-making about ongoing community engagement efforts.

We present an adaptive community engagement approach developed for City of Austin Watershed Protection Department’s strategic plan update effort. The system integrates spatial data from Census references, surveys responses, and potential engagement events. We leverage a suite of tools, including Feature Manipulation Engine, ArcGIS Online Dashboards, ArcGIS Survey123, and Social Pinpoint to create an automated spatial and tabular data pipeline and interactive map dashboard.

Planners and community outreach staff can use the dashboard to see which demographic groups are underrepresented in existing outreach responses and then filter a map of Census blocks to find areas where underrepresented groups are more concentrated. The map also includes geocoded community events and resources, such as schools and libraries. The new dashboard and data integration tool enables staff to take an adaptive approach to community engagement by identifying opportunities to improve representation among historically disadvantaged groups.