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Jefferson Parish, Louisiana: Jefferson Parish Watershed Management Plan and Balancing Water Campaign
May 20, 2022
Jefferson Parish, Louisiana lies on a coastal floodplain of the Gulf of Mexico and has more water than land area. The parish is innovating to adapt to rising sea levels and more extreme flooding in the region, and created the Balancing Water Campaign to mitigate flood risk and improve its communities’ resilience. The approach to balancing water levels focuses on rethinking how to manage the impacts of stormwater and land subsidence to live with more water, while increasing natural drainage across the floodplain. The Jefferson Parish Watershed Management Plan was developed as a part of the Balancing Water initiative, to guide local decisionmakers with resilient floodplain management strategies for capital improvements, regulatory revisions, and land use, while emphasizing the use of green infrastructure and low-impact development. In addition, the parish is undertaking other complementary efforts like elevating flood-prone homes with the support of federal grants, and participating in the National Flood Insurance Program’s Community Rating System (CRS) program and a Jefferson Parish CRS Users Group to further local flood resilience initiatives.
Resource Category: Planning
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State of Iowa and State of Texas: Regional Water Planning
May 18, 2022
This entry summarizes some approaches to regional watershed management and flood mitigation in Texas and Iowa. This research was conducted to inform Georgetown Climate Center's work in Louisiana's Region Seven Watershed.
Resource Category: Organizations
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Mecklenburg County, North Carolina: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services, Flood Risk Assessment and Reduction Community Guidebook
April 6, 2021
The Flood Risk Assessment and Reduction Community Guidebook was developed as part of an initiative led by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services (CMSWS) of North Carolina, with support from the U. S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Flood Apex Program, to help communities nationwide to adapt to flooding. Based on years of developing the CMSWS flood mitigation program and tools, the Community Guidebook details the process of acquiring data to assess flood hazards and risk, and to evaluate and prioritize strategies to mitigate that risk.
Resource Category: Planning
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Recovering Stronger: A Federal Policy Blueprint - US Water Alliance
January 2021
The U. S. Water Alliance’s report “Recovering Stronger: A Federal Policy Blueprint” was released in early 2021 and addresses the acute needs of the nation’s municipal water infrastructure resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic as well as long-term underfunding of water resources infrastructure and inequities in access to clean water. The report makes recommendations for how the federal government could make funding for municipal water resources more stable; make water supplies safer; improve access to safe drinking water and wastewater treatment in low-income communities, communities of color, and rural communities; modernize the water sector; improve resilience to climate change; and take a whole-of-government approach to managing the nation’s water resources.
Related Organizations: U.S. Water Alliance
Resource Category: Solutions
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USDA NRCS Emergency Watershed Protection Program
The U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) offers an Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program to provide both technical and financial assistance to help local communities and individual landowners recover from disaster events that impair a watershed. The EWP Program provides two assistance program options for Recovery and Floodplain Easements. All EWP Program funding is provided to NRCS through Congressional appropriations. EWP Program funding offers the benefit of providing potentially faster and greater geographic coverage support for disaster-impacted communities because while a disaster event is required for eligibility, a presidential disaster declaration is not.
Related Organizations: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Resource Category: Funding
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Water Rising: Equitable Approaches to Urban Flooding
July 2020
In July 2020, the US Water Alliance released the report Water Rising: Equitable Approaches to Urban Flooding. The Report focuses on providing best practices for equitable solutions to flood control and resilience. It proposes five priority actions that policymakers can undertake to achieve this work: using data to identify risks, assets, and community vulnerabilities; committing to ongoing and meaningful community engagement; setting a proactive vision and building strategic alignment with that vision; fully incorporating equity into any resilience planning processes; and emphasizing that investors target frontline communities.
Related Organizations: U.S. Water Alliance, The Kresge Foundation
Resource Category: Solutions
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An Equitable Water Future: Louisville, Kentucky
June 26, 2019
An Equitable Water Future: Louisville focuses on building equity in the infrastructure workforce, primarily the water sector, in Louisville, Kentucky. Local factors that influence water equity are described, including concentrated vulnerable communities that are disproportionality experiencing aging infrastructure, flooding and climate impacts, and barriers to participating in the local infrastructure workforce. The report outlines recommendations to address these issues that Louisville and other municipalities can take to advance sustainable and equitable utility management.
Related Organizations: U.S. Water Alliance, City of Louisville, Kentucky, Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District
Resource Category: Solutions
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Virginia Beach Public Works Design Standards Manual - Sea Level Rise and Precipitation Adjustments for Stormwater Management Design
May 2019
In 2019, the City of Virginia Beach updated its Public Works Design Standards Manual (Manual) to account for climate change impacts in drainage system design requirements that help control stormwater runoff. The Manual provides minimum design standards for all City public works projects within City rights-of-way, easements, and City-owned properties (e. g. , roadway, drainage, and traffic signal design standards). Section 8 of the Manual addresses stormwater management, and unlike most of the rest of the Manual, its standards apply to all private projects as well as City construction projects relating to stormwater management.
Related Organizations: City of Virginia Beach, Virginia
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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EPA Water Finance Clearinghouse
EPA’s Water Infrastructure and Resiliency Finance Center developed this Water Finance Clearinghouse which is designed to support communities in financing sustainable drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure solutions. This online portal includes two searchable databases: one of available funding sources from for water infrastructure, and the second offers resources related to financing mechanisms for community-level water infrastructure. Many funding programs listed address water supply resilience, sustainability and climate change adaptation measures.
Related Organizations: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Resource Category: Funding
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Harvesting the Value of Water: Stormwater, Green Infrastructure, and Real Estate
2017
The Urban Land Institute has found that real estate developers are incorporating green infrastructure stormwater management requirements into their business models. This report analyzes current stormwater policies and describes a variety of real estate development projects that have responded to them. The report details some of the latest advancements in stormwater management regulations cities are taking to address aging infrastructure, combined sewer overflows, and flood frequency, that are amplified by climate change.
Related Organizations: Urban Land Institute
Author or Affiliated User: Katharine Burgess
Resource Category: Solutions