Greauxing Resilience at Home: A Regional Vision
Louisiana is one of the hardest-hit areas in the United States as extreme weather events and regular flooding become more frequent and intense.1 These challenges often fall “first and worst” on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color or “BIPOC” and low-income communities.2 This is especially true in the U.S. Gulf Coast region and the state of Louisiana.
Over time, these challenges are being exacerbated by population increases and transitions as climate and non-climate drivers (e.g., people moving out of urban centers into more rural areas) influence where people choose — or are able — to live.
In southeast Louisiana, resilient, affordable housing initiatives are critical to ensuring equitable adaptation that takes into consideration the myriad overlapping challenges facing all Louisianans, but especially those living in communities that have long borne a disproportionate burden of risk.
Over a two-year period between fall 2020 and spring 2022, Capital Region Planning Commission and Georgetown Climate Center partnered with dozens of people from government, private, and nonprofit sectors and community stakeholders in Region Seven of the Louisiana Watershed Initiative located in southeast Louisiana.3 The result of that partnership effort is Greauxing Resilience at Home: A Regional Vision4 (Regional Vision), a resource to inform Region Seven’s ongoing work to increase community resilience by promoting affordable housing and nature-based solutions.
Regional and local governments in Region Seven can use the Regional Vision to identify potential legal, planning, and policy tools and projects to increase the affordability and availability of housing and the use of nature-based solutions. In addition, the Regional Vision offers insights for policymakers across Louisiana, throughout the Gulf Coast region, and nationally.
Publication Date: June 16, 2022
Authors or Affiliated Users:
Related Organizations:
- Georgetown Climate Center
- Capital Region Planning Commission
Related Resources:
- Greauxing Resilience at Home: A Collection of Lessons and Case Studies from Louisiana and Beyond
- State of Iowa and State of Texas: Regional Water Planning
Related Toolkits:
- Managed Retreat Toolkit > Crosscutting Policy Considerations > Social/Equity: Receiving Communities
- Greauxing Resilience at Home: A Regional Vision > Goal Five: Greaux implementation and capacity-building efforts to increase resilience. > Objective 5.5:
Sectors:
- Coastal
- Emergency preparedness
- Land management and conservation
- Land use and built environment
- Rural
- Urban
- Frontline Communities
- Water infrastructure
- Water resources
- Small communities
Resource Category:
Resource Types:
- Adaptation plan
- Best practice
- Case study
- Laws
- Legal Analysis
- Plans (other)
- Policy analysis/recommendations
- Tool (general)
- Project
States Affected:
Impacts:
- Flooding
- Extreme storms and hurricanes
- Precipitation changes
- Sea-level rise
Endnotes
1. State of La., Louisiana Climate Action Plan: Climate Initiatives Task Force Recommendations to the Governor 15–16 (Feb. 2022), available at https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/docs/CCI-Task-force/CAP/ClimateActionPlanFinal.pdf.
2. See id. at 15–17.
3. The Louisiana Watershed Initiative is an effort to create a paradigm shift in floodplain management towards a strategy that approaches flood risk reduction from a nature-based solutions and land-use-based approach. A part of this approach includes identifying eight separate regional watershed management areas to assist in achieving cross-jurisdictional activities.
Region Seven is one of these eight watershed regions. Region Seven encompasses the upper part of the toe of Louisiana’s boot. It spans eastward from the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge across the Northshore (i.e., north of Lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas) to Mississippi and along the Mississippi River to the Bonnet Carré Spillway.The region includes 13 parishes and 45 incorporated municipalities.
4. To reflect their connection to Louisiana’s cultural heritage, the project team and members of Region Seven that participated in this process chose to use the word “Greaux,” a French-inspired phonetic spelling of the word “Grow,” to brand this product.
