Table of Contents

Annapolis and the Imperative of Resilience

The Participatory Planning Approach

XR as a Catalyst for Deeper Engagement

A Resident’s Journey: From Concern to Co-Creation

From Local Action to Urban Health

Annapolis and the Imperative of Resilience

Annapolis, Maryland’s capital, faces mounting pressures from climate-driven flooding that threaten its historic waterfront, neighborhoods, and infrastructure. The city recorded a record 120 flooding events in 2024 alone, driven by sea-level rise, storm surges, and heavy rain, according to local planning updates. Official city planning documents, including the Annapolis Ahead 2040 Comprehensive Plan, identify resilience to these threats as a core priority, noting the city’s vulnerability due to its low-lying topography and Chesapeake Bay location. The plan highlights goals for adapting infrastructure, protecting neighborhoods, and advancing equitable strategies that address how lower-income communities often face greater impacts.

These challenges intersect with longstanding equity concerns, as lower-income and historically underserved communities often bear disproportionate impacts from recurrent flooding. Recent efforts, such as the City of Annapolis partnership with the Resilience Authority, target areas like the Eastport peninsula where 38 sites of concern have been identified for mitigation.

The Participatory Planning Approach

Resident engagement in Annapolis centers on structured participatory planning processes that invite community members to contribute local knowledge directly into resilience strategies. This approach draws from city-led workshops and neighborhood forums outlined in the Annapolis Ahead 2040 Comprehensive Plan, where residents map vulnerabilities, prioritize interventions, and co-develop adaptation measures such as living shorelines and improved stormwater systems.

By emphasizing co-design rather than top-down directives, the method builds trust, surfaces hyperlocal insights, and ensures solutions reflect lived experiences across diverse wards. It aligns with broader goals of equity by amplifying voices from flood-prone areas like Eastport, where public surveys have helped narrow focus to priority projects.

XR as a Catalyst for Deeper Engagement

Extended reality technologies, particularly augmented reality (AR) applications, transform these participatory sessions by overlaying dynamic visualizations onto the physical cityscape. Participants use mobile devices or lightweight headsets to view projected flood levels on familiar streets, buildings, and parks in real time during on-site or hybrid workshops. Similar tools have been used in cities like Vienna to show climate effects on streets and in New York through apps like Ocellus XR for exploring flood and heat risks.

This capability allows residents to simulate future scenarios—such as a Category 2 hurricane in 2035 or chronic tidal flooding—based on data from NOAA and city modeling. AR tools enable precise annotation of proposed solutions like elevated infrastructure or green buffers, fostering immediate feedback and iterative design. Real-world examples demonstrate how AR helps make complex projections tangible during community events.

Unlike static maps or presentations, XR bridges the gap between abstract data and tangible experience, making complex climate projections accessible and actionable for non-experts while supporting projects like the City Dock resilience initiative.

A Resident’s Journey: From Concern to Co-Creation

Consider Maria, a longtime resident of Annapolis’s Eastport neighborhood, where tidal flooding has increasingly disrupted daily life. Motivated by repeated basement inundations and blocked access to local businesses, she joins a city-sponsored resilience workshop series hosted in partnership with community organizations and the Resilience Authority.

During the first session, Maria and neighbors don AR-enabled tablets that render a 3D model of their block under projected 2050 sea-level rise. They walk the actual sidewalks while the app highlights inundation zones, potential evacuation routes, and the effects of proposed living shorelines. Maria marks areas where stormwater infrastructure has historically failed, adding notes visible to planners in real time.

Subsequent sessions incorporate her input alongside data from other participants, refining proposals for permeable pavements and community gardens that double as flood buffers. The XR platform tracks collective priorities, generating heatmaps that directly inform the city’s updated adaptation action list, including Eastport-specific studies.

Over several months, Maria observes how her contributions shape tangible outcomes: a new green infrastructure pilot on her street and improved early-warning systems tailored to neighborhood input. The technology not only visualizes risks but also documents consensus, reducing the typical friction between residents and officials.

From Local Action to Urban Health

Maria’s experience in Annapolis illustrates how XR-enhanced participatory planning converts individual concern into collective agency. Residents move from passive recipients of policy to active co-creators of their city’s future, strengthening social cohesion and trust in governance.

This model has implications beyond flood resilience. By making complex urban challenges legible and collaborative, XR-supported engagement can address other pressing needs—such as housing equity or green space access—while nurturing the civic fabric essential to long-term urban health. As more cities adopt similar tools, the question becomes how to scale these approaches equitably so that every resident, regardless of background, can shape the places they call home.