Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): resilience

Developing effective ways to measure a community’s climate resilience

Co-authored by: Anushi Garg and Ravena Pernanand

Anushi is the senior analyst for Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Resilient Coasts & Watersheds program in New York-New Jersey. Ravena is a research analyst at Regional Plan Association.

Across the globe, we are experiencing detrimental impacts from climate change, with low-wealth communities and communities of color hit the hardest. And while there are several ways we can measure climate impacts — such as determining sea level rise or increasing temperatures — we still lack ways to easily answer the question “how resilient are we?” Or “how does one community’s resilience compare to another?” The right tools are needed to understand how well our communities, ecosystems and infrastructure bounce back from or avoid climate impacts in order for government officials, advocates and community members to effectively assess, track and implement future solutions.  

To address this gap, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Regional Plan Association (RPA) collaborated on a pilot project alongside partners and stakeholders in New York City. We characterized stakeholders’ resilience priorities, such as having access to affordable and climate-safe shelter, and identified indicators that could measure the progress of these priorities.  

This project lays the groundwork for developing resilience report cards that are useful to different regions, evidence-based and community informed, as well as identify specific targets that can be easily updated and support advocacy and management decision-making. Take a look at the three key findings from our project’s report: 

1. We have many excellent tools to measure vulnerability and climate hazards but lack ways to measure resilience  

There are many indicators and mapping tools that local, state and federal officials and the nonprofit sector have developed to measure social vulnerability and exposure to natural hazards like flooding. In addition, some tools look at environmental justice, such as FEMA’s new Community Disaster Resilience Zones platform or EDF’s Climate Vulnerability Index, in addition to tools that address this on a local scale. 

While demographic and climate hazards are important to inform resource targeting, they cannot tell us if the systems, meaning the interacting group of components that make up the core attributes of resilience, are functioning and at what level. Using these tools in combination with resilience indicators can provide greater insight into management decision making and in tracking progress.  

Resilience indicators can be combined with social vulnerability and hazard data across geographies to inform us about how functional or present different attributes of resilience are in areas of varying risk. / Source: Ellis Calvin, RPA

2. Indicators should be aligned with stakeholder priorities 

Following Hurricane Sandy, communities throughout New York City developed local resilience plans to ensure residents were better prepared for worsening climate impacts. For this project, EDF and RPA collected and analyzed 41 community-based plans to see if priorities were consistently articulated at the community level. Then through a series of community stakeholder workshops, we consolidated more than 500 goals and identified indicators that could be used to measure progress toward those goals.  

We also reviewed an array of existing academic and gray literature and analyzed commonalities and differences in the way the communities and scientists evaluate resilience. Science typically focuses on systems, while communities overwhelmingly focus on outcomes. We used this as an opportunity to integrate science with the community’s experiential knowledge to develop indicators that can improve both existing conditions and systems. 

3. We need user-friendly ways to evaluate success and shortcomings in resilience planning and management  

Through the project, we identified three primary users for resilience indicators and metrics.  

This map demonstrates how a single indicator, in this case hazardous and chemical bulk storage sites, can be mapped along with social vulnerability and hazard exposure to inform more targeted management action. See also New York City Environmental Justice Alliance’s Waterfront Justice Project, which first identified the importance of mapping these sites in the context of the floodplain in the New York City area. / Source: Ravena Pernanand, RPA

  • Government managers, such as Chief Resilience Officers, can use indicators to evaluate the resilience of individual systems (e.g., infrastructure) and combine them with social vulnerability and hazard data to evaluate and compare across geographies and better triage funding, strategies and assistance. This allows managers to track progress, evaluate the effectiveness of strategies and facilitate collaboration across agencies toward shared goals and measurements.  
  • Advocates can use indicators by combining them into a simple index or resilience report card. This could help demonstrate if an area or district is underperforming compared to others, as well as build public pressure to prompt government action.  
  • Community-based organizations provide their communities with direct services related to resilience. A set of measurable indicators could be used to leverage financial support and guide participatory budgeting processes that foster the community’s improvement. The indicators could also educate community members about their neighborhood, help them gather community-led data and inform community-focused resilience plans.  

There are several examples already of how this work might be applicable in resilience efforts. New York City’s Office of Management and Budget is currently working on developing a climate budgeting process which would track the impacts of the city’s budget on making climate improvements across all city agencies. New York has already announced a commitment to develop a comprehensive plan to build statewide climate resilience. As funding and opportunities for resilience planning and implementation become available, it is an opportune time to adopt measurable indicators as an accountability and best management practice by engaging with advocates, community-based organizations and governments and producing or co-developing user-oriented versions of this report.  

We encourage partners, agencies and academia to join us in closing the resilience data gaps and use the findings from this report to prioritize resilience and improve decision making. 

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Five reasons why mandatory flood disclosure in Florida would be a big win for realtors

By: Rachel Rhode, Manager, Climate Resilient Coasts and Watersheds and Eve Cooke, Fellow, Climate Resilient Coasts and Watersheds

Buying a home is often one of the biggest financial decisions individuals and families will ever make. More than one-third of Florida properties are at risk of severe flooding in the next 30 years, and despite these risks, Florida does not require flood-related disclosures to prospective homebuyers. Across the U.S., 32 states have enacted flood disclosure laws, requiring a seller to share a property’s flood risks or past flood damages during real estate transactions. Florida residents deserve transparency through flood disclosure, and realtors would benefit by keeping up with this growing industry standard.   

Knowing one’s risk is essential in ensuring effective preparedness and response. The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates just one inch of flooding in a typical 2,500 sq. ft., one-story home can cause more than $25,000 in damages. It is widely misunderstood by more than one-third of homeowners that flood damage is typically not included in standard homeowners or rental insurance policies. 

Legislators and realtors are stepping up to address this gap in Florida’s flood policies. In the 2024 Florida Legislative Session, there has been bipartisan support for a new policy on flood disclosure. The Florida Realtor Association is amongst the stakeholders supporting this initiative. 

Knowledge is power.  Below are the top five reasons why mandatory flood disclosures are a win for realtors and residents. 

Credit: Chase Guttman

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Sharing innovative solutions to build climate resilience in Cuban coastal communities

The sun beats hot past colonial facades and newly minted hotels in Old Havana, onto the children playing soccer across Paseo del Prado. High tides splash over the tidal wall and the taxi driver notes, over the noise of the street, that dark storm clouds line the horizon and are threatening heavy rains. Like other coastal and island regions, communities in Cuba are experiencing the disproportionate effects of climate change.   

Since 2016, Environmental Defense Fund, the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humankind and the Caribbean Agroecology Institute have partnered with local communities and organizations from Cuba as a part of the Research Initiative for the Sustainable Development of Cuba (RISDoC). RISDoC is a coalition of academics, civil society associations and representatives from international agencies who have come together to exchange innovative strategies and share lessons learned to prepare for climate impacts and spur sustainable economic growth. In addition to bringing together a range of Cuban community members, government officials and researchers, RISDoC connects experts from other regions with Cuba. This includes partners in Puerto Rico and Louisiana, regions that are experiencing more frequent and severe storms due to climate change and are working to build resilience.  

Thanks to this important initiative, RISDoC participants are building a more resilient future in Cuba. Check out a few of their key priorities: 

Photo credit: Noel López

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Climate-driven floods could displace millions of Americans. Local buyout programs could help them relocate.

By Kelly Varian, Master of Public Affairs Student at UC Berkeley

Flooding is the most frequent and costly natural disaster in the United States, causing over $30 billion in damage annually, with disproportionate effects on low-income communities. With climate change exacerbating flood risk and population growth continuing in high-risk areas, over 40 million Americans living along rivers and inland floodplains, along with 13 million more on the coasts, could see their homes inundated with water by the end of the century. 

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New report: Investing in Arizona’s water future

This blog is co-authored by Rachel O’Connor, Manager, Climate Resilient Water Systems.

As Arizona’s water crisis worsens due to extreme drought and overuse, more attention than ever is being directed toward addressing this critical issue. At the federal level, an influx of funding has become available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. And at the state level, the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority (WIFA) has just begun accepting proposals for its first allocation of $200M for water conservation projects

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Prioritizing communities and nature in the nation’s largest Army Corps project in New York-New Jersey Harbor

A plan for the largest transformation of New York City’s and northern New Jersey’s waterfront since the Robert Moses era has been proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). It’s called the New York-New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries Study and it was introduced to the public to address flooding and storms like Hurricane Sandy. At stake is the future of more than 84 miles of waterfront and waterways in the metropolitan region and an area that supports 16 million people.  

New York City

New York and New Jersey residents must determine if this $52 billion dollar plan aligns with the future they want. Addressing flood risks is a step in the right direction, but as it stands today, the current proposal does not reflect the priorities of many communities and environmental organizations. With the impacts of climate change already in motion, we simply cannot afford to get this wrong.  Read More »

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Five recommendations for integrating equity into benefit-cost analysis for flood risk management

When making any decision, we often find ourselves weighing the pros and cons of an action – the benefits versus the cost. The official practice, referred to as “benefit-cost analysis,” is not only used by individuals and businesses, but also by the federal government when determining funding for a program or initiative. In simple terms, when the benefits exceed the cost of an investment, federal funding may be made available.

flooding

But oftentimes benefit-cost analysis doesn’t look at the full picture, neglecting to consider who benefits from an investment and who bears the brunt of its cost. This is true when examining the nation’s flood risk management strategy. Historically, the annual loss from flood damage disproportionately impacts low-income communities and communities of color, leaving those with fewer resources less protected.

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A new way of partnering with the Corps leads to innovative wetland mitigation solutions and increased flood resilience.

Today marks the release of the Record of Decision (ROD) from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) on a restoration project known as the River Reintroduction into Maurepas Swamp (or Maurepas Diversion) that will serve as mitigation for the West Shore Lake Pontchartrain hurricane risk reduction levee project (WSLP). Read More »

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My perspectives on how we can inspire the next generation of Black climate leaders.

By Arianna Mackey, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Summer 2022 Intern

I became aware of my community’s lack of environmental awareness at a very young age. Growing up in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, my family and I visited the Nauticus museum often. One afternoon, after spending time in the flooding exhibit, I explained to my mom that due to increased flooding, Virginia Beach would be inhabitable in the future, with standing water reaching the front door following a storm. She brushed me off by saying it was an “over-exaggeration” and our community was fine. That encounter piqued my interest in environmentalism. Read More »

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4 ways North Carolina’s Legislature can build lasting flood resilience

As North Carolina continues to recover from a string of flooding and storm disasters, legislative leaders have recognized the opportunity for the state to not just recover from recent storms but to rebuild better before the next disaster.

This week, Environmental Defense Fund released a white paper [PDF] recommending four specific policy actions that would better protect residents and businesses from more severe flooding, create jobs and increase climate resilience.   

These four policies will also help the state better compete for federal funding, build capacity within communities and equitably align solutions for those who are disproportionately impacted by disasters.   Read More »

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