Introduction
Find here general resources to help communities become more resilient. For public policy actions and funding resources, see the following sub-pages:
- Find funding for research and implementationIncludes links to grant funding for resilience projects.
Books
The Environmental Planning Handbook for Sustainable Communities and Regions by
The Environmental Planning Handbook aims to increase the capacity of communities and regions to plan for and achieve environmentally sustainable development.
ISBN: 9781611901511Publication Date: 2014-09-07
Resilient Sustainable Cities by
Publisher description: Provides an integrated approach for long term future planning within the context of the city as a whole system. The book provides practical and conceptual insights for practitioners, researchers and students on how to deliver cities which are resilient to ' slow burn' issues and achieve sustainability.
ISBN: 9780415816212Publication Date: 2013-12-09
Sustainable and Resilient Communities by
Publisher description: Many of today's communities face an unprecedented struggle to adapt and maintain their environmental, economic, and social well-being in an era beleaguered by fiscal constraints, uncertainty about energy prices and supplies, rapid demographic shifts, and accelerated climate impacts. This step-by-step guidebook for urban planners and urban designers explains how to create and implement an actionable plan for making neighborhoods, communities, and regions more environmentally healthy, resource-conserving, and economically resilient. Sustainable and Resilient Communities delineates measures for repairing, retrofitting, and transforming our built environments and supporting systems-transportation, energy, water, natural environment, food production, solid waste, and economics
ISBN: 9780470536476Publication Date: 2011-03-22
The Urban Planet by
Global urbanization promises better services, stronger economies, and more connections; it also carries risks and unforeseeable consequences. To deepen our understanding of this complex process and its importance for global sustainability, we need to build interdisciplinary knowledge around a systems approach. Urban Planet takes an integrative look at our urban environment, bringing together scholars from a diverse range of disciplines: from sociology and political science to evolutionary biology, geography, economics and engineering. It includes the perspectives of often neglected voices: architects, journalists, artists and activists. The book provides a much needed cross-scale perspective, connecting challenges and solutions on a local scale with drivers and policy frameworks on a regional and global scale. The authors argue that to overcome the major challenges we are facing, we must embark on a large-scale reinvention of how we live together, grounded in inclusiveness and sustainability. This title is also available Open Access.
ISBN: 9781107196933Publication Date: 2018-04-26
Other Resources
- 4 ways cities can invest now in climate resilience Protecting coastal cities from sea level rise will require a blend of solutions best offered through proactive planning.
- Adapting Cities for Climate Change: The Role of the Green Infrastructure The urban environment has distinctive biophysical eatures in relation to surrounding rural areas. These include an altered energy exchange creating an urban heat island, and changes to hydrology such as increased surface runoff of rainwater. Such changes are, in part, a result of the altered surface cover of the urban area. Climate change will amplify these distinctive features. This paper explores the important role that the green infrastructure, i.e. the greenspace network, of a city can play in adapting for climate change. It uses the conurbation of Greater Manchester as a case study site. The paper presents output from energy exchange and hydrological models showing surface temperature and surface runoff in relation to the green infrastructure under current and future climate scenarios.
- Being Prepared for Climate Change: A Workbook for Developing Risk-Based Adaptation Plans This workbook and the associated resources guide users to develop a risk-based climate change adaptation plan consisting of a vulnerability assessment and an action plan to reduce the most pressing risks.
- Building Better Water Rates for an Uncertain World Building Better Water Rates for an Uncertain World provides the background and concepts needed to develop, evaluate, and implement an effective rate structure.
- Center for Sustainable Cities The USC Center for Sustainable Cities conducts research, education, and community outreach to address sustainability challenges facing metropolitan regions. The Center fosters multi-disciplinary research with an emphasis on sustainability challenges of metropolitan areas. Metropolitan areas are at the core of sustainability issues; large populations and extensive, resource intensive economic activity generate environmental pollution and consume scarce natural resources. Metropolitan areas also exhibit some of our most serious social equity problems. As the world’s population continues to urbanize, metropolitan areas will increasingly be the focus of environmental protection, social justice, energy conservation, and greenhouse gas reduction policies.
- Chemical Safety and Climate Change Preparedness This project brings businesses and municipalities together to provide resources and models for incorporating toxics use reduction into emergency preparedness to reduce the risk of industrial accidents.
- City Resilience Framework: City Resilience Index This framework will form the basis of a tool that should enable all of us interested in city resilience to convene around a common understanding of that idea, and begin to 'baseline' what matters most for making cities more resilient. Both the framework and the index are intended to facilitate a process of engagement with and within cities that generates dialogue and deeper understanding. Ultimately, this will lead to new ideas and opportunities to engage new actors in civil society, government and business on what makes a city resilient.
- ClearPath ClearPath is an all-in-one suite of online tools to complete GHG inventories, forecasts, and climate action plans at the community-wide or government operations scale. It allows multiple users to collectively: develop baseline and subsequent inventories; track emissions progress over time; forecast multiple scenarios for future emissions; analyze benefits of emissions reduction measures; visualize alternative planning scenarios; receive guidance and training.
- Climate Change Adaptation: DOD Can Improve Infrastructure Planning and Processes to Better Account for Potential Impacts GAO recommends that DOD develop a plan and milestones for completing climate change vulnerability assessments of installations; provide further information to installation planners, clarifying actions that should be taken to account for climate change in planning documents; and clarify the processes used to compare military construction projects for funding, to include consideration of potential climate change impacts. DOD concurred with GAO's recommendations and explained how they will be implemented.
- Climate Ready Great Lakes Climate Ready Great Lakes consists of three modules designed to help create a Great Lakes region that is “climate ready.” Toward this end, these modules provide stakeholders and decision makers with clear information about Great Lakes climate, as well as what we need to adapt to, why, and how. Each module consists of a presentation (available in PowerPoint format) and supplemental materials, including worksheets, handouts, and evaluation forms. Presenters may wish to use the evaluations at the end of a presentation or training workshop.
- Collaboratory for Adaptation to Climate Change This website is a resource for research, education, and collaboration in the area of adaptation and climate change. t is funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of Notre Dame.
- Community resilience to climate change (Minnesita Pollution Control Agency) Links to information about fostering resilient communities in a number of different areas including weather resiliency, beating the heat, and securing healthy food.
- Community Resilience Toolkit The Community Resilience Toolkit is a popular online resource currently used by community leaders in 46 of the 50 states and in 16 countries to strengthen their communities in the face of worsening climate change, rising food and energy prices, and lingering economic recession.
- Cool Policies for Cool Cities: Best Practices for Mitigating Urban Heat Islands in North American Cities The urban heat island (UHI) effect is a global phenomenon in which dark, impermeable surfaces and concentrated human activity cause urban temperatures to be several degrees hotter than those in surrounding areas. Urban heat islands impose negative effects on local and global public health, air quality, energy consumption, resilience, quality of life, stormwater management, and environmental justice. Cities across North America experience and mitigate the impacts of UHIs. We conducted a review of the UHI mitigation activities of 26 North American cities and distributed a questionnaire to local government contacts to gather information. This report profiles the causes, impacts, strategies, and social and institutional context of city action in the sampled cities.
- Cool Science: Urban Heat Islands Provides information about the causes and consequences of heat islands, as well as a list of relevant reports and research papers.
- Development of a Climate Resilience Screening Index (CRSI): An Assessment of Resilience to Acute Meteorological Events and Selected Natural Hazards This report details research in the development and demonstration of the CRSI approach at both the national and regional scales using county data. The report also includes an extensive analysis of the conceptual framework along with methods for metric, indicator and domain calculation.
- Enhancing Sustainable Communities With Green Infrastructure Aims to help local governments, water utilities, nonprofit organizations, neighborhood groups, and other stakeholders integrate green infrastructure strategies into plans that can transform their communities. Many communities that want to use green infrastructure approaches face technical, regulatory, financial, and institutional obstacles that limit widespread implementation. This report serves as a guide to develop a plan that can overcome these obstacles for neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions of all sizes. It helps stakeholders create a vision for how green infrastructure can enhance their communities--a vision that engages residents and inspires them to take action. It also directs readers to other resources that provide more detailed information that can be tailored to communities' particular climate, goals, and circumstances.
- Environmental Resilience Tools Wizard The Environmental Resilience Tools Wizard (ERTW) contains tools produced by EPA that address environmental concerns in disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. It is an online wizard that helps you find the right resource to meet your needs.
- EPA's Heat Island Newsletter EPA's Heat Island Newsletter keeps you informed with periodic announcements of funding opportunities, webcasts, publications, and events of interest to the urban heat island community.
- FutureStructure FutureStructure is a new initiative from the publishers of GOVERNING, Government Technology and Emergency Management, together with the GOVERNING Institute and the Center for Digital Government. The goal of FutureStructure is to help public sector leaders think more like system engineers and thereby get past the constraints inherent in the haphazard and siloed approaches that government often encounters when conceiving of and building a community's future. By thinking about cities as systems of systems, our FutureStructure initiative helps convene and change the conversation around the interrelated parts that make our communities work.
- Great Lakes Water Management A team led by the Great Lakes Commission is working with communities in the United States and Canada to identify and test the ecological and financial rationales for pursuing water conservation and green infrastructure practices, and pilot how this information can drive better water management throughout the Great Lakes region.
- Greening Local Government This Greening Local Government Project is designed to address both the concept of green municipalities and state governments, as well as advance the implementation of energy conservation methods, while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. Although the case studies come from EPA Region 8, much of the information on the site is wider in scope.
- Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns (G3) Program In October 2010, EPA launched the Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns (G3) Initiative to provide support for small to medium-sized communities in urbanized watersheds working to reduce stormwater runoff through the use of green infrastructure. The G3 Initiative supports the use of green streets to bring a community's "Green Vision" to life and provides the tools and resources needed to develop a green vision, design-build, and operate and maintain green infrastructure stormwater management practices. Green streets provide multiple community benefits by improving the water quality of local watersheds and enhancing a community's livability and economic vitality. Although originally focused on the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the G3 approach can be broadly applied to any community to manage stormwater runoff.
- Green Works for Climate Resilience: A Community Guide to Climate Planning The intent of this guide is to provide communities with an overview of the kinds of nature-based approaches that can be used to respond to and prepare for the impacts of climate change, and provide descriptions and examples of the ways in which communities are already working to implement them, ranging from streamlining adaptation into existing zoning to the development of holistic, multi-sector adaptation plans. Nature-based approaches rely on enhancing, protecting, and restoring natural infrastructure, such as coastal wetlands, parks, and tree canopies, as well as features that mimic natural processes, such as rain gardens or green roofs that are used in low-impact development (LID).
- Guidelines for Considering Traditional Knowledges in Climate Change Initiatives There is increasing recognition of the significance of traditional knowledges (TKs) in relation to climate change. And yet there are potential risks to indigenous peoples in sharing TKs in federal and other non-indigenous climate change initiatives. These guidelines are intended to examine the significance of TKs in relation to climate change and the potential risks to indigenous peoples in the U.S. for sharing TKs in federal and other non-indigenous climate change initiatives. These guidelines are intended to meet multiple goals. First and foremost, these guidelines are intended to be provisional. They are intended to increase understanding of the role of and protections for TKs in climate initiatives, provide provisional guidance to those engaging in efforts that encompass TKs and increase mutually beneficial and ethical interactions between tribes and non-tribal partners
- H2Info: U.S. Water Partnership Resource Portal H2infO provides a single entry point for access to quality U.S.-based water-related resources that contribute to solutions for global water challenges. This web portal shares a broad range of resources developed by U.S. Water Partnership members that can be used by stakeholders around the world.
- How to Make Cities More Resilient: a Handbook for Local Government Leaders This handbook provides mayors, governors, councillors and other local government leaders with a generic framework for risk reduction and points to good practices and tools that are already being applied in different cities for that purpose. It discusses why building disaster resilience is beneficial; what kind of strategies and actions are required; and how to go about the task. It offers practical guidance to understand and take action on the "Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient" as set out in the global campaign "Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready!". From the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
- Local Government Environmental Assistance Network The Local Government Environmental Assistance Network (LGEAN) is a "first-stop shop" providing environmental management, planning, funding, and regulatory information for local government elected and appointed officials, managers and staff. LGEAN is one of EPA's Compliance Assistance Centers that helps businesses, local governments, and federal facilities understand and comply with federal environmental requirements and save money through pollution prevention techniques.
- Managing Wet Weather with Green Infrastructure: Municipal Handbook: Green Infrastructure Retrofit Policies This paper will explore the policies and incentives that municipalities have used to facilitate the use of green infrastructure within their stormwater programs. While the benefits of green infrastructure are increasingly understood, incorporating green retrofits into municipal infrastructure has presented institutional and regulatory challenges. The solutions to overcome these barriers are often dependent upon the water quality objectives and technologies employed. The policies are presented in this paper by technology type, but often approaches used for one green infrastructure practice are applicable to another or there is overlap among goals and outcomes.
- Measuring & Mitigating Water Revenue Variability: Understanding How Pricing Can Advance Conservation Without Undermining Utilities’ Revenue Goals This report examines real financial and water use data from three North American water utilities to demonstrate how rate structures can mitigate or intensify revenue variability. It also introduces alternative financial and pricing strategies that can assist water utilities in stabilizing revenue without compromising the commitment to water conservation.
- Meeting Summary: Green Resilience Climate Adaptation + Mitigation Synergies The purpose of this report is to capture best practices and lessons learned from experts in the field who are contributing to an integrated approach to climate adaptation + mitigation (A+M) to cut carbon pollution (mitigation) and prepare the nation for climate change impacts (adaptation). These best practice and lessons learned were distilled from the “Climate Adaptation + Mitigation Synergies: Pursuing Implementation Pilots” symposium and workshop sessions held at the 14th National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy and the Environment Conference held in Washington, DC from January 28-30, 2014. The Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) and the National Climate Assessment’s network (NCAnet) Adaptation + Mitigation Nexus (AMNex) affinity group co-hosted these sessions.
- MInnesota GreenStep Cities Minnesota GreenStep Cities is a voluntary challenge, assistance and recognition program to help cities achieve their sustainability and quality-of-life goals. This free continuous improvement program, managed by a public-private partnership, is based upon 29 best practices. Each best practice can be implemented by completing one or more actions at a 1, 2 or 3-star level, from a list of four to eight actions. These actions are tailored to all Minnesota cities, focus on cost savings and energy use reduction, and encourage civic innovation.
- Natural Connections: Green Infrastructure in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana Green infrastructure is the interconnected network of open spaces and natural areas that provides wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities and maintains the sustainability of our region. CNT and Openlands collaborated on this effort to support natural resource protection and land preservation efforts across parts of Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. Funding for this project was generously provided by The Joyce Foundation. This site allows you to create your own Green Infrastructure maps online, as well as view and download green infrastructure maps of the 19 counties studied.
- NOAA Digital Coast Provides not only essential data sets, but also the tools and training coastal communities need to turn these data into useful information. This centralized, user-friendly, and cost-effective information repository was developed by the NOAA Coastal Services Center for the coastal managers, planners, decision-makers, and technical users who are charged to manage the nation's coastal and ocean resources to sustain vibrant coastal communities and economies.
- Proposed Recommendations for Promoting Community Resilience in Environmental Justice Industrial Waterfront Areas This report discusses opportunities to build resilience among environmental justice communities in industrial waterfronts, particularly in light of the challenges posed by climate change.
- Rain Ready Rain Ready offers a suite of policies and practices to help residents, communities, and states plan for weather events associated with global climate change. Use the website as a toolkit for becoming more resilient to too much or too little rain in the most cost-effective ways possible.
- Reducing Urban Heat Islands: Compendium of Strategies Reducing Urban Heat Islands: Compendium of Strategies (October 2008) describes the causes and impacts of summertime urban heat islands and promotes strategies for lowering temperatures in U.S. communities. It provides an overview of heat islands, how they form, and their impacts, and describes key urban heat island reduction strategies in depth. It also describes voluntary and policy efforts undertaken by state and local governments to mitigate urban heat islands.
- Resilient Cities Research Report Resilience increases when cities have more adaptive capacity and decreases when they are more vulnerable. Exponential population and economic growth is placing so much pressure on resources that resilience, which has for so long been a free gift of history, urgently needs to be rethought. By quantifying the resilience of 50 of the world's most important cities we, at Grosvenor, hope to contribute to this vital debate.
- Resources for Local Officials and Community Members (U.S. EPA) A one-stop directory for local government officials and community members seeking to address today's complex environmental challenges at the local level.
- Resources on community resilience from the RAND Corporation Community resilience is a measure of the sustained ability of a community to utilize available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations. RAND has implemented and evaluated community resilience-building activities worldwide and identified opportunities to integrate the non-profit and for-profit sectors in public health and emergency preparedness, infrastructure protection, and the development of economic recovery programs.
- Smart community infrastructures — Review of existing activities relevant to metrics This Technical Report reviews existing activities relevant to metrics for "smart" community infrastructures and provides directions for further standardization. This Technical Report discusses metrics which is designed to help buyers to evaluate technical performances of community infrastructure products and services for procurement and, through the development of future technical standards in this area, may additionally be used in real-time monitoring for the operation of an existing community infrastructure. Only portions of this document are available to view at no charge.
- Smart Growth Strategies for Disaster Recovery and Resilience How and where growth occurs, both in the short and long terms, can have a major impact on how well communities can prepare for and recover from natural disasters. But communities have not always used development planning as a strategy to become more resilient to hazards. Integrating smart growth approaches into preparedness and recovery can change this dynamic. Smart growth strategies like creating flexible land use policies, targeting public investment to catalyze private investment, and engaging the entire community in making decisions about the future can help communities recover from a disaster, rebuild according to a shared community vision, and be better prepared for the next natural disaster.
- Sustainable Cities Institute The National League of Cities' Sustainable Cities Institute provides cities and sustainability professionals with timely, vetted, and practical resources to identify and implement solutions to advance their goals and strengthen their communities. Whether your city is just getting started or has an experienced history and commitment to sustainability, the robust collections of city profiles, case studies, model policies, and communication tools found here will provide elected leaders, staff, and engaged stakeholders with a set of resources to guide and catalyze action across a range of topics, including green infrastructure, urban agriculture, recycling, and energy efficiency.
- Sustainable development of communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life (ISO 37120) This International Standard defines and establishes methodologies for a set of indicators to steer and measure the performance of city services and quality of life. It follows the principles set out and can be used in conjunction with ISO 37101:—, Sustainable development in communities — Management systems — General principles and requirements, when published, and other strategic frameworks. This International Standard is applicable to any city, municipality or local government that undertakes to measure its performance in a comparable and verifiable manner, irrespective of size and location. Only portions of this standard are available for online viewing at no charge.
- Trees & Stormwater This tool helps local decision makers throughout the U.S. integrate trees into facility design regulations and policies for new and retro-fitted installations.
- U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit The U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit provides scientific tools, information, and expertise to help people manage their climate-related risks and opportunities, and improve their resilience to extreme events. The site is designed to serve interested citizens, communities, businesses, resource managers, planners, and policy leaders at all levels of government.
- U.S. EPA State and Local Climate and Energy Program The State Climate and Energy Program helps states develop policies and programs that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy costs, improve air quality and public health, and help achieve economic development goals. EPA provides states with and advises them on proven, cost–effective best practices, peer exchange opportunities, and analytical tools.
- Urban Adaptation Assessment The Urban Adaptation Assessment (UAA) is an interactive database that collates a rich dataset within a visual platform to give leaders the data they need to make decisions on how best to adapt and prepare. Encompassing data from over 270 cities within the United States, including all 50 states and Puerto Rico, whose populations are above 100,000, the UAA allows you to explore the connection between vulnerabilities to climate disasters, adaptive capacities, and how these are distributed within a city.
- Urban Climate Change Governance Survey The UCGS covers both the "what" and the "how" of local action on climate change. Capturing key information on cities' climate plans, targets, and projects, it provides the most up-to-date portrait of urban responses to climate change. It is also the first to explore in detail how local government, civil-society, and private sector actors come together to move local climate change initiatives forward. Conducted at MIT, in collaboration with ICLEI, the survey gathered information from hundreds of local governments around the world. Based on their feedback, the UCGS unpacks how different approaches to climate governance affect how cities take action on climate change. As well as identifying key barriers, it highlights the tactics that local governments are using to break institutional inertia, enable collaboration, and facilitate implementation.