Adaptation Strategies for Rural and Small Communities
This tab includes strategies, best practices, and legal and policy analysis relevant to adaptation efforts in rural and small communities.
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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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April 2019
Developed by the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) in 2019, this report summarizes the findings of a survey of 15 Regional Climate Collaboratives (RCCs) that are supporting climate change action at the regional scale in the United States. RCCs are networks that coordinate adaptation (and sometimes mitigation) work across jurisdictional boundaries in municipal regions of the U. S. and often include local and state government representatives as well as nonprofit, academic, and private partners.
Related Organizations: Institute for Sustainable Communities
Authors or Affiliated Users: Steve Adams , Karina French
Resource Category: Solutions
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January 2019
Georgetown Climate Center (GCC) prepared this report to help the Eastern Shore Climate Adaptation Partnership (ESCAP) identify strategies for adapting to increasing sea-level rise and flood risk in the Eastern Shore region of Maryland. This publication is a part of a series of reports assessing the sea-level rise vulnerability of communities in Maryland's Eastern Shore, as well as potential adaptation responses. ESCAP worked with the Eastern Shore Regional GIS cooperative to assess sea-level rise vulnerabilities in the six counties and two municipalities that participate in ESCAP.
Related Organizations: Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, Georgetown Climate Center
Authors or Affiliated Users: Jessica Grannis , Katie Spidalieri , Jennifer Li
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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July 15, 2020
This report, produced by the Georgetown Climate Center, features 17 case studies about how states, local governments, and communities across the country are approaching questions about managed retreat. Together, the case studies highlight how different types of legal and policy tools are being considered and implemented across a range of jurisdictions — from urban, suburban, and rural to riverine and coastal — to help support new and ongoing discussions on the subject. These case studies are intended to provide transferable lessons and potential management practices for coastal state and local policymakers evaluating managed retreat as one part of a strategy to adapt to climate change on the coast. The case studies in this report were informed by policymakers, practitioners, and community members leading, engaging in, or participating in the work presented in this report. This report was written to support Georgetown Climate Center’s Managed Retreat Toolkit, which also includes additional case study examples and a deeper exploration of specific legal and policy tools for use by state and local decisionmakers, climate adaptation practitioners, and planners.
Related Organizations: Georgetown Climate Center
Authors or Affiliated Users: Katie Spidalieri , Isabelle Smith
Resource Category: Solutions
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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 2015
After visiting more than 30 communities across the U.S. that are preparing for climate change, two enterprising young authors identify six big lessons from ongoing adaptation work in this report released by the Georgetown Climate Center.
Related Organizations: Georgetown Climate Center
Authors or Affiliated Users: Allie Goldstein, Kirsten Howard
Resource Category: Solutions
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This report summarizes selected local land use ordinances and regulations that include specific mention of sea level rise or that incorporate appropriate policy responses that may be used to address sea level rise. While developed for The Nature Conservancy Long Island, it is a useful resource for any coastal state.
Related Organizations: Pace University School of Law, Land Use Law Center , The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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August 19. 2015
This report describes how climate-related extreme weather events exacerbate existing socioeconomic inequalities. In this case, the report highlights the disproportionate challenges experienced by frontline communities during the California drought that began in 2012, which includes communities of color and low-income people living in tribal, rural, and farming communities. The report discusses the following topics: the causes and severity of California’s drought; the drought’s impacts on the national food system; demographics, water rights, and drought impacts in agricultural communities; and policy recommendations.
Related Organizations: Center for American Progress
Author or Affiliated User: Wendy Ortiz
Resource Category: Solutions
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October 2016
This report analyzes feedback from over 600 respondents from 48 states and 19 countries working on climate adaptation at the local level. The report makes the case that climate adaptation at the local level is vital, but that local practitioners need additional support. Data collected by Antioch University New England’s Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience was used to the determine the issues that local communities face when adapting to climate change and offers recommendations to better meet those needs.
Related Organizations: Antioch University Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience
Authors or Affiliated Users: Abigail Abrash Walton, Christa Daniels , Michael Simpson, Jason Rhoades
Resource Category: Solutions
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In Louisiana, a state-created land trust is supporting floodplain buyouts and helping families relocate out of vulnerable flood-prone areas. The Louisiana Land Trust (LLT) was created in 2005 to support buyouts after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. After more recent flood events, LLT expanded its role to help communities relocate to safer, higher ground areas. The land trust is helping to facilitate the resettlement of residents of the Pecan Acres subdivision in Pointe Coupee Parish and the Isle de Jean Charles community in Terrebonne Parish. The Pecan Acres subdivision is located in a lower-income neighborhood north of the City of New Roads, and has experienced repeated flooding 17 times over the past 20 years. LLT is working to help resettle approximately 40 households within the subdivision by acquiring their flood-prone properties, and supporting a development on higher ground where they can relocate. Isle de Jean Charles is a narrow island in South Terrebonne parish and is the home of the Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees and United Houma Nation tribes. The island has lost 98% of its land mass since 1955 and many residents have left as a result of increasing flooding, where encroaching seas often flood the only roadway connecting the island to the mainland. With funding from the , the state is working to support implementation of a tribal resettlement plan. LLT acquired the resettlement site, about 40 miles north of the island that will be redeveloped. Eligible and participating families and individuals will be offered properties on the site with a five-year forgivable mortgage. Both the Pecan Acres and Isle de Jean Charles resettlement developments will incorporate resilient and green design features (including elevation about FEMA minimum standards, LEED certified construction, green infrastructure, and community amenities like parks) and will enable the residents to relocate together, maintaining social bonds and cohesion. This example demonstrates how land trusts can support efforts to relocate whole communities, and support development of sustainable and resilient receiving communities.
Related Organizations: Louisiana Office of Community Development - Disaster Recovery Unit (OCD-DRU) , Louisiana Land Trust
Resource Category: Solutions
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