Rural and Small Community Adaptation Case Studies
This tab features case studies that describe examples of how rural and small communities are adapting to climate change.
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Resource
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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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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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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2016
In the summer of 2016, the City of Austin, MN surveyed minority, immigrant and refugee people to determine their knowledge of climate change and how it impacted them personally. Surveys were completed over a two-week period at a local non-profit called the Welcome Center, which helps new residents and immigrants transition into the city, find economic opportunities, and become part of Austin's multicultural community. Following the survey, the City compiled the results and convened a focus group with Karen women, primarily from southern and southeastern Myanmar.
Related Organizations: City of Austin, Minnesota, Great Plains Institute , The Welcome Center
Resource Category: Education and Outreach
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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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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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July 25, 2020
The Florida Keys Community Land Trust (CLT) demonstrates how land trusts can deliver resilient affordable housing options in disaster-affected areas. The Florida Keys, a 125-mile long chain of islands off the southern tip of Florida in Monroe County, were devastated in 2017 by Hurricane Irma. Irma made landfall at Cudjoe Key as a Category 4 hurricane and its sustained winds of 132 mph and 8-foot storm surge devastated homes, businesses, and infrastructure in the Lower and Middle Keys. Twenty-five percent of the homes in the Florida Keys were damaged or destroyed by the storm, with disproportionate impacts on manufactured homes that made up the bulk of affordable housing in the County.
Related Organizations: Florida Keys Community Land Trust
Author or Affiliated User: Jessica Grannis
Resource Category: Solutions
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November 2016
In November 2016, the Manufactured Home Community Coalition of Virginia and project:HOMES, a nonprofit affordable housing provider in central Virginia, commissioned An Assessment of Central Virginia’s Manufactured Housing Communities: Understanding the Conditions, Challenges, and Opportunities , a report prepared by HDAdvisors to analyze the place of manufactured housing within the affordable housing conversation. This report is the first full assessment of the existing conditions of manufactured home parks in the central Virginia region and includes an analysis of the socioeconomic status and demographic trends for manufactured home residents. In addition, the report includes a detailed quality survey of more than 50 manufactured home parks across the region.
Manufactured homes and park communities are important to include when planning for climate change, adaptation, and resilience. Data and baseline housing studies underpin and should serve as a foundation for planning efforts. This report serves as an example of an affordable housing assessment that can be used by other regional or local policymakers to evaluate the current status of affordable, manufactured homes and parks.
Resource Category: Assessments
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June 2021
In 2019, after decades of repetitive flooding, the town of Hamilton in Skagit County, Washington partnered with Forterra, a local land conservancy nonprofit, to annex a 48-acre parcel of land located outside of the town’s 100-year floodplain. Annexing this land will provide Hamilton with a higher, drier ground area where town residents could voluntarily relocate to new homes. Forterra is developing plans for the annexed parcel to build affordable, environmentally conscious homes for Hamilton residents. Hamilton provides an example for other municipalities and local governments either in a pre- or post-disaster context for revitalizing a community challenged by frequent flooding through adaptation actions. As done in Hamilton, local governments may consider possibilities for providing relocation options to residents within a floodplain, including by annexing new land, particularly where sufficient higher ground land within existing municipal boundaries is not available. Annexation can allow local governments to maintain local communities, tax bases, and economies.
Resource Category: Solutions
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