Highly Rated Resources
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Resource
May 2017
From the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN), this guide is aimed at local government and outlines a framework for designing and implementing a community-driven, equitable climate preparedness planning process. Community-driven planning empowers those experiencing the greatest climate risks to co-define the solutions. Rather than treating equity as a component of climate preparedness planning, this guide suggests that equity should be at the center of any adaptation approach. It outlines why traditional planning falls short of supporting equity, describes why climate change vulnerability is not evenly spread, and identifies how typical adaptation strategies can be reframed to focus on equity. Throughout the document, examples from cities are presented to showcase real-world applications.
Explore more resources like this by joining our Adaptation Equity Portal
Related Organizations: Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN)
Authors or Affiliated Users: Tina Yuen , Eric Yurkovich , Beth Altshuler , Lauren Grabowski
Resource Category: Planning
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Resource
May 2017
This report outlines a framework, informed by community-based organizations from across the country, to meaningfully engage vulnerable and impacted communities in defining and building climate resilience. The guide seeks to use climate resilience activities to better build momentum for change, build a new economy and community-based financing, deepen democracy and improve governance, and activate ecological and cultural wisdom. In addition to describing guiding principles and elements of community-driven planning, the document provides examples of case studies where communities have taken a central role in resilience planning. The guide is primarily aimed at other community-based organizations, but it may also be useful for philanthropy and public sector officials.
Related Organizations: National Association of Climate Resilience Planners, Movement Strategy Center
Author or Affiliated User: Rosa González
Resource Category: Planning
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Resource
March 2017
The Innovation Network for Communities’ Essential Capacities for Urban Climate Adaptation report provides a review of the promising practices in urban adaptation, a summary of recent advances in the field, and a roadmap for communities to continue advancing adaptation practices.
Resource Category: Solutions
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Resource
February 23, 2017
The Harlem Heat Project is a community-based initiative that began in New York City in the summer of 2016. It combines crowd-sourcing, data reporting, and narrative journalism to tell the story or urban heat islands in New York City. Non-profit journalism and community-based organizations came together to provide low-cost heat sensors to homeowners in "heat-vulnerable" areas of Harlem in New York City. The data was used to tell the story of disproportionate risks to extreme heat for lower-income and communities of color as a result of increasing temperatures from climate change.
Related Organizations: WE ACT for Environmental Justice , AdaptNY , I See Change
Resource Category: Solutions
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Resource
January 18, 2017
This Georgetown Climate Center (GCC) case study on the Sierra Nevada Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Partnership (Sierra CAMP) explores how local governments in the 22-county rural Sierra-Nevada region of California are coordinating across jurisdictional boundaries to prepare for climate change. This case study describes how Sierra CAMP was formed and has organized its decision-making, what local governments and other stakeholders are involved in the collaborative, what roles it is playing to support climate action in the Sierra-Nevada region, how the collaborative is influencing state decisionmaking and broadening connections between rural and urban adaptation efforts, and how the collaborative is funding its activities.
Related Organizations: Georgetown Climate Center
Authors or Affiliated Users: Annie Bennett , Hillary Neger
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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Resource
January 2017
This report focuses on ways that local governments can prepare for climate change impacts through land use and building policies. The report focuses on smart growth strategies that offer multiple benefits beyond climate preparedness including cost-savings, energy efficiency, increasing transportation options, and building economic opportunities. The strategies presented in the report are categorized as modest adjustments, major modifications, and wholesale changes, in order to help local governments determine which options are most appropriate for their own community.
Related Organizations: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Resource Category: Solutions
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January 19, 2017
The Georgetown Climate Center report, Lessons in Regional Resilience, documents lessons learned from regional climate collaboratives, which are bringing together local governments and other stakeholders to coordinate climate change initiatives at a regional level. This synthesis report shares lessons from each of the collaboratives in individual case studies, and offers insight to their goals, planning processes, and funding sources. The report is intended to help local governments consider models for coordinating at the regional level to facilitate planning and action to prepare for the impacts of climate change and draws on examples from six regional collaboratives from around the country.
Related Organizations: Georgetown Climate Center
Authors or Affiliated Users: Annie Bennett , Jessica Grannis
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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Resource
2017
Cal-Adapt is a climate change geospatial data tool for California, that is developed and maintained by the University of California, Berkeley Geospatial Innovation Facility with funding and oversight by the California Energy Commission. Cal-Adapt offers localized climate change projections for the state produced by California's scientific and research community. The updated version, Cal-Adapt 2. 0, has been released with new, high-resolution climate projections, enhanced visualizations, and improved access to data.
Related Organizations: Google.org, University of California, Berkeley, Scripps Institution of Oceanography , Pacific Institute , California Energy Commission , U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Resource Category: Data and tools
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This comprehensive, web-based guide from Wetlands Watch compiles sea level rise adaptation resources for local governments in coastal Virginia. The guide includes numerous case studies, both from Virginia and other coastal communities of the United States. It also highlights funding opportunities, costs and benefits of different approaches to adaptation, flags adaptation approaches eligible for receiving credit through the National Flood Insurance Program's Community Rating System, and explores means of public engagement.
Related Organizations: Wetlands Watch
Authors or Affiliated Users: Mary-Carson Stiff , Ross Weaver
Resource Category: Planning
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Resource
December 12, 2016
Achieving Urban Resilience illustrates the environmental, health and economic benefits that Washington, D. C. could gain from citywide adoption of smart surface technologies such as cool roofs, green roofs, solar PV, porous pavements, bio-retention, rainwater harvesting, reflective pavements, permeable pavements, and urban trees. The report quantifies the benefits of adopting cost-effective strategies to manage sun and rainfall at a city level, and documents how the District could save at least $5 billion over 40 years with smart surface strategies.
Related Organizations: District Department of Energy and the Environment (DDOE) - Washington DC, District Department of General Services - Washington DC, Capital E
Authors or Affiliated Users: Greg Kats, Keith Glassbrook
Resource Category: Planning
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