Climate change, its impacts and possible solutions, are critical topics of our time. Its study requires a deep and nuanced understanding of the needs of diverse communities for effective policy-making and resource allocations to foster equitable resilience. Qualitative methods provide a viable tool to collect data for human dimension analysis. While not all data collected using qualitative methods can be statistically analyzed, survey instruments are versatile and can be analyzed statistically to gain insights into response patterns—thus gaining insights into the human dimensions of the problem. The use of geospatial frameworks to map survey results reveals trends and spatial patterns that might not be obvious using statistics alone, with results represented in traditional bar graphs and charts. Additionally, integration of a geospatial framework with survey offers context for the responses (such as socio-economic and biophysical vulnerabilities; coastal vs. non-coastal responses), so place-based analysis of responses can be conducted. It should be noted that the point of this case study is to demonstrate a method, i.e, how survey responses can be mapped and analyzed to reveal the unique needs of communities in the context of vulnerabilities. When survey data are collected using appropriate sampling size from disparate neighborhoods, the results can be used to develop custom policies rather than a ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy. However, ‘analysis of human dimensions’ is full of uncertainty. Therefore, it is important to design surveys and adopt sampling techniques and size to minimize uncertainties. It is crucial to follow data protection best practices when collecting sensitive data.