Adaptation and Resilience
Table of Contents
Innovation Lab - Concept Developing and Prototyping: Learning resources to understand the topic.
Innovation Lab - Refinement: Tools and guides to inform developing programs.
Adoption Accelerator - Standards Emerging and Scaling: Implementation examples to show how it is being done.
Innovation Lab - Concept Developing and Prototyping: Learning resources to understand the topic.
LNPK 156- Enhancing Resilience Through Food Access and Social Connectednessin Duluth, MN: A project to build climate resilience and address health disparities in a low-income neighborhood through creative placemaking and collaborative partnership development.(Partners for Places, 2024).
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Carbon Capture, Storage, and Utilization: A suite of reports that explore carbon capture storage and utilization technologies and solutions they provide to cities. (CNCA Innovation Fund, 2020)
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Seattle Extreme Heat Scenario-Based Pilot-Project in Frontline Communities - Racial Equity Evaluation: A pilot program in Seattle to understand how these municipal agencies can better support low-income communities and communities of color during extreme heat events. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2016).
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Cascadia Region Urban Forestry and Adaptation Convening and Tree Procurement Paper: The Cascadia Regional Network convened experts and practitioners of urban forestry, municipal sustainability and planning, and climate adaptation to address adaptation opportunities for urban forestry. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2015).
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Deep Carbon Reductions: A Copenhagen Exchange: This international exchange brought together global leaders in Copenhagen, Denmark, to explore the nexus between adaptation and mitigation strategies with a focus on deep carbon reductions. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2015).
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Local Government Role in California Adaptation Planning: The Green Cities California (GCC) regional network convened local government representatives from regional climate adaptation networks in California to clarify the most effective roles for local governments in regional public/private climate adaptation efforts. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2014).
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Creating the Western Adaptation Alliance: The creation of a 7-city alliance in the inter-mountain west that focuses on advancing climate adaptation efforts regionally. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2011).
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Innovation Lab - Refinement: Tools and guides to inform developing programs.
Heartland Carbon Drawdown Initiative: A suite of carbon management spatial analysis tools that equip cities with new capabilities to quantify carbon drawdown potential across trees, soils, and organics to achieve carbon mitigation objectives. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2021)
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Redesigning Municipal Organic Material Systems for Climate & Community Resilience & Equitable Economic Diversification: A tool to help cities quantify and redirect organic waste streams into climate stabilizing resources in ways that generate new economic opportunities and enhance equitably distributed community benefits for both urban and adjacent rural communities. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2021)
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Real-Time Wildfire Smoke Communications Project: This project developed replicable resources for local governments and partners to use in advancing resilience to wildfire and grass fire smoke, particularly among those populations most impacted. This work provides a template for ways to engage internal and external stakeholders in climate resilience, as well as sample workflows that can be used for response to air quality or other public health issues. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2019)
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Climate Training Toolkit 2.0 - USDN Game of Extremes and USDN Game of Heat: This project builds on previous climate adaptation trainings developed by USDN cities by building in an extreme heat component. The project adds implementation strategies to the trainings to better support cities in translating these trainings into practical changes in their planning documents, project plans, infrastructure investments and capital budgets. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2019)
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USDN Socioeconomic Mapping Tool for Climate Risk Planning: This project produced a practical and scalable mapping tool that enhances cities’ ability to use socioeconomic information and connect it to climate risks. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2019)
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USDN Great Lakes Climate Action Network (GLCAN) Vulnerability Assessment Template and Scenario Development: This project was designed to understand how vulnerability assessments (VA) are being used to inform local government decisions. It then created a city VA template with associated processes for 5 cities from the Great Lakes region. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2018)
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A Guide to Equitable, Community-Driven Climate Preparedness Planning: Few climate adaptation guides address equity issues through specific adaptation solutions, inclusive community engagement tactics, or the root causes of inequities in climate risk. This document addresses these gaps and provides guidance to local governments in designing and implementing a more inclusive, equitable planning process. The Racial Equity Evaluation Tool, a companion to this guide, is an interactive tool to assess racialized power in climate preparedness planning. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2017).
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Climate Adaptation Framework and Indicator Evaluation: A collaborative effort to evaluate several existing adaptation frameworks and assess the need for and feasibility of developing a framework for cities to use, including a guide to developing urban climate adaptation indicators, a spreadsheet of sample adaptation indicators, and a presentation that explains the project. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2016).
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Climate Adaptation Tools in the Arid West: The Western Adaptation Alliance regional network held a deep dive training on using existing climate adaptation tools, which were developed in a previous USDN Innovation Fund project. Deliverables include: 1) links to story maps; 2) The workshop agenda; 3) the workshop PPT presentation, and 4) a WAA Network Stories PPT. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2016).
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Climate Training Toolkit 1.0 - USDN Game of Floods: The City of Baltimore led an effort to develop a climate training toolkit for local governments to utilize as they train their own staff on opportunities to support climate adaptation and resilience progress. Products include: 1) the Climate Toolkit How-to Guide; 2) Case Studies; 3) Exercise Track; 4) Game of Floods Track; and 5) a Training Presentation. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2017).
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GHG Reduction RFI and Evaluation Toolkit: A customizable toolkit for cities to engage a broad set of stakeholders, technical assistance providers, and innovators in identifying and implementing actionable greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction strategies and create a means of evaluating costs and benefits of various strategies. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2016)
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Southeast Adaptation Planning and Resiliency Handbook: Community resilience planning in the southeast context. The project resulted in an online Community Resilience Planning Handbook for communities across the Southeast. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2015).
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Western Adaptation Allliance Extreme Weather Events Toolbox: The Western Adaptation Alliance (WAA) developed an Intermountain West/Southwest oriented Extreme Weather Toolbox. The WAA used the grant to hire CLIMAS (Climate Assessment for the Southwest) to develop the Toolbox. The Toolbox covers 5 hazards: heat, flooding, drought, wildfire, and wind (including dust storms and cyclonic events). (USDN Innovation Fund 2015).
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USDN Climate Adaptation Planning Project: A research and planning project to support the climate adaptation work of USDN members and to provide a foundation for USDN’s focus on climate change preparedness and resilience that began in 2014 and continues into 2016. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2014).
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Adoption Accelerator - Standards Emerging and Scaling: Implementation examples to show how it is being done.
New Bedford Resilience Hub and Community Alert System Pilot Project: A project to evaluate the feasibility of creating Resilience Hubs in two New Bedford communities, identify a community-based organization to lead each, and create business plans for funding. (Partners for Places, 2021)
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Boston's Resilient Homes Initiative: A project to ensure vulnerable multifamily affordable housing, which is home to some of Boston’s most socially and economically underserved residents, is ready to withstand future climate shocks.(Partners for Places, 2021)
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Climate Ready Resilience Strategy in Miami, FL: A project to align Miami’s Strategic Plan with the resilience priorities, initiatives and performance measures identified in regional resilience strategy development and the City’s updated Comprehensive Development Plan. (Partners for Places, 2019)
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Community Climate Resiliency Project in Salt Lake City, UT: A project to initiate inclusive engagement of low-income and minority Salt Lake City residents in efforts to mitigate climate change impacts, improve community resilience, and ensure social equity. (Partners for Places, 2019)
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Using Trees as Green Infrastructure for Economic, Social and Environmental Outcomes in St. Louis: A project to employ teens and to host neighborhood tree-planting events to help address stormwater management while also enhancing tree canopy, reducing heat island impact, and strengthening community relations (Partners for Places, 2018).
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Community Engagement for Equitable Planning in Las Cruces: A project to launch a community engagement campaign in eight underserved neighborhoods that gathers neighborhood-level data and stories, and then brings residents together with city staff to address institutional barriers to equity in community development, climate preparedness, and emergency planning (Partners for Places – Equity Pilot, 2016).
Design and Resiliency Teams (DARTs) Phase 2 - Dubuque, Fraser, Southern Nevada, and Vinalhaven: This project implemented a phase two of Design and Resiliency Teams (DARTs). Four community reports are posted here. Reports from phases 1 and 2 can also be found on this website. Outcomes from both phases reflect an interest in the DART’s unique approach and DART’s ability to help advance community conversations around resilience. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2018)
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Utah Climate Action Network: This project focused on expanding the Utah Climate Action Network. Deliverables include a network coordinator job description, a replicable public climate change engagement strategy, a fundraising plan, a carbon footprint report, and a climate effort catalog by Utah organization. This network has become a policy and programmatic clearinghouse that promotes collaborative applications of best practices aligned with major climate impact areas: Water, Energy, Transportation, Public Health, Economy, and Land. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2017).
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Climate Resiliency Planning in Michigan: A project on effective roles for local governments in regional climate resiliency efforts in the Michigan Green Cities Network (MGC), modeled after the Green Cities California (GCC) model. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2016).
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» Watch related webinar
Collaborating for Climate Preparedness - Insights from a 2015 Workshop: A 2015 workshop of local government and community organization representatives about how they can better collaborate within local communities to enhance climate preparedness and equity, highlighting secrets to successful collaborations and examples of collaboration for climate preparedness. (USDN Special Project, 2016).
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Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) for Drought Response in California: USDN-affiliated regional network Green Cities California (GCC) adapted a USDN Innovation Fund project on community based social marketing to address drought response for staff members who are primarily responsible for municipal water programs. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2016).
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New England Design and Resiliency Teams: A collaborative effort to help the New England Municipal Sustainability Network (NEMSN) create Design and Resiliency Teams (DARTs) to help Providence RI and Belchertown MA identify strategic and paradigm shifting resiliency opportunities and to catalyze action. (USDN Innovation Fund, 2016).
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Communicating Adaptation Data in the Heartland: The Heartland regional network identified opportunities to incorporate climate change impacts into local government public policy decisions and actions. (Innovation Fund, 2015).
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Neighborhood Resiliency in Baltimore MD: A project to increase and enhance resiliency in neighborhoods most vulnerable to the impacts of natural hazards and climate change. (Partners for Places, 2015).
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Residential Climate Change Adaptation in Cleveland OH: A project to mitigate and adapt to climate change by engaging residents in improving tree canopy, transportation mode shift, and entrepreneurship, delivering tangible outcomes for neighborhood resilience and equity. (Partners for Places, 2015).
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Stamford 2030 District: A resilient, high-performance building district in downtown Stamford with goals to dramatically reduce demand for energy and water resources and increase resiliency by 2030. (Partners for Places, 2015).
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Water Reuse in Long-Term Drought in Chula Vista CA: A project to help move the community to the next level of water management and resiliency through water reuse opportunities in the face of persistent and long-term drought facing the region and state. (Partners for Places, 2015).
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Wildfire Resiliency Program in Missoula MT: A project to prepare the community to thrive amid increasing summer wildfire smoke and heat by helping Missoulians to be physically, mentally, and economically healthy and resilient. (Partners for Places, 2015).
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Urban Heat Mitigation Plan in Louisville KY: A project to address Louisville's growing urban heat problem, exploring and why and how to reduce it and working as a community to do so. (Partners for Places, 2013).
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