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State Chief Resilience Officers: Establishment, Authority & Governance
February 3, 2025
As the human and financial toll of the climate crisis continues to climb, a growing number of jurisdictions are establishing a new role – the Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) – to lead pre-disaster planning and risk reduction efforts to build resilience to climate-fueled hazards. Released by the Georgetown Climate Center, State Chief Resilience Officers: Establishment, Authority & Governance explores the position and functioning of Chief Resilience Officers across 12 states and provides recommendations for states considering creating a CRO position.
Related Organizations: Georgetown Climate Center
Author or Affiliated User: joshua saks
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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Massachusetts Executive Order 604 (2023): Establishing the Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience within the Office of the Governor
January 6, 2023
In January 2023, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey issued Executive Order 604, establishing a new Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience and Climate Chief position within the Office of the Governor focused on advancing Massachusetts’ climate adaptation and mitigation goals.
Related Organizations: State of Massachusetts
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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Helping Massachusetts Coastal Communities Adapt to Climate Change
October 13, 2021
The Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game Division of Ecological Restoration (MDER) addresses the impacts of sea level rise, increased storm surge, and more frequent and severe flooding of coastal rivers through guidance and support of climate adaptation projects in coastal communities. Through its Priority Projects Program, MDER provides technical and financial assistance to local partners such as municipalities, landowners, and agencies to plan and implement projects that incorporate climate adaptation into habitat restoration. Example projects include dam removals, culvert upgrades, and salt marsh restoration, among others.
Related Organizations: Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game
Author or Affiliated User: Sally Ann Sims
Resource Category: Solutions
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Massachusetts Climate Resilience Design Standards Tool
April 21, 2021
On April 21, 2021, the State of Massachusetts, under the Governor Charlie Baker Administration, launched the Climate Resilience Design Standards Tool, an online platform that enables state and local governments to assess climate change considerations when designing and siting development and infrastructure projects. Specifically, the tool offers guidance for state-funded and other projects by creating project-specific climate vulnerability assessments and providing general guidance for ways that the state and local governments can consider making a project more climate resilient.
Related Organizations: Resilient MA Action Team
Resource Category: Data and tools
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Coastal Resilience Solutions for Downtown Boston and North End
September 2020
The “Coastal Resilience Solutions for Downtown Boston and the North End” is a $200 to $300 million dollar, 50-year plan to protect the Boston waterfront, including Downtown, the North End, and the eastern edge of the city’s West End. The plan aims to protect these neighborhoods from a hundred-year flood on top of a 40 inch rise in sea levels by late this century. The integrated plan relies on a combination of natural (green infrastructure) defenses, breakwaters, seawalls, harbor walks, and raised land to protect the waterfront and inland areas from increases in coastal flooding and sea level rise.
Related Organizations: City of Boston, Massachusetts
Resource Category: Planning
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Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, Boston, Massachusetts
The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) in the Dudley Triangle neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts is one of the first examples of a city-land trust partnership designed to address a range of community challenges including housing affordability, and racial and economic inequality. In the 1980s, DSNI created the community land trust, Dudley Neighbors, Inc. (DNI) to combat blight in the Dudley Triangle neighborhood, which as a result of disinvestment had numerous vacant properties and became a frequent site for dumping and arson. The goal of the land trust was to facilitate redevelopment of the neighborhood without displacing existing residents and to empower community control over future development. DNI acquired 60 acres of land and currently stewards 225 units of affordable housing, an urban farm, a greenhouse, a charter school, parks, and a town common. The DSNI is also notable because of the unique partnership with the City of Boston. The City granted the land trust eminent domain authority to condemn lands in the Dudley Triangle neighborhood and provided the land trust significant financial resources to support the development of affordable housing and other community projects in the neighborhood. DSNI’s work has helped to enhance the resilience of the community by preventing displacement in the face of rapid gentrification in the city, enhancing food security for residents, creating and stewarding green space that help to reduce urban heat islands, and by increasing social cohesion in the neighborhood through community activities and a community-led governing Board. DSNI shows how innovative public-partnerships between land trusts and cities can be fostered to address climate resilience and other community stressors, such as the lack of affordable housing, blight, and disinvestment.
Author or Affiliated User: Jessica Grannis
Resource Category: Solutions
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Massachusetts Audubon Mapping and Prioritizing Parcels for Resilience Tool
2018
Massachusetts Audubon Society (Mass Audubon), the largest non-profit in the state protecting over 38,000 acres of land and habitats, partnered with The Nature Conservancy and LandVest in 2016 to create the Mapping and Prioritizing Parcels for Resilience (MAPPR) Tool. MAPPR includes mapping layers that can help policymakers and conservationists select specific geographic areas (e. g. , town, county, watershed) within the state and identify parcels of land that, if protected, would maximize environmental and community benefits.
Related Organizations: Massachusetts Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
Resource Category: Data and tools
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Anticipated Vulnerabilities: Displacement and Migration in the Age of Climate Change
September 2019
When Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico in September of 2017, thousands of its inhabitants were forced to flee their homes - many of whom ended up in in the City of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Between 2017 and 2018, over 5,400 people moved from Puerto Rico to Holyoke. In the years that followed, the city and partners at Hunter College and the University of Connecticut surveyed these families, intending to learn what aspects worked in response to their displacement and resettlement. Officials also hoped to assess how other cities could duplicate the incorporation of Puerto Rican climate migrants into Holyoke as more frequent climate events displace additional communities in the coming years.
Related Organizations: City of Holyoke, Massachusetts, Hunter College, University of Connecticut, Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA)
Resource Category: Solutions
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Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Grant Program
2019
Massachusetts’ Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness grant program (MVP) provides support for cities and towns across the state to begin the process of planning and implementing climate change resiliency projects. The state awards communities with funding to complete vulnerability assessments and develop resiliency plans.
Related Organizations: Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA)
Resource Category: Funding
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City of Somerville, Massachusetts Climate Forward Plan
January 2019
Somerville, Massachusetts’ climate change plan includes policies, programs, and strategies for climate change adaptation, mitigation, and social equity. 13 primary strategies or Action Areas were developed to make Somerville climate neutral by 2050, and more climate resilient in the near-and long-term.
Related Organizations: City of Somerville, Massachusetts
Resource Category: Planning
