Investigate Options

Starting the Climate Conversation: Using Scenario Planning to Promote Resilience in Beef Production

Too big to fail

Across rural landscapes of the Northern Great Plains, evidence of the beef cattle industry is everywhere: tall grain elevators and bins that store feed products dominate many small towns, and it’s very common to see beef cattle grazing in pastures or gathering around automated feeders in animal feeding operations. Indeed, in Nebraska—long known as “the beef state”—the Nebraska Beef Council asserts that beef production is “the state’s single largest industry and the engine that powers the state’s economy.”

FEMA National Flood Insurance Program Community Rating System

The National Flood Insurance Program's (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS) is a voluntary incentive program that recognizes and encourages community floodplain management activities that exceed the minimum NFIP requirements.

As a result, flood insurance premium rates are discounted to reflect the reduced flood risk resulting from the community actions meeting the three goals of the CRS:

Students Promote Flood Resilience and Reduce Insurance Costs

Hands-on learning

Climate Change Preparedness and Resiliency Checklist

This checklist helps builders and renovation project managers gather relevant information about climate change impacts that could affect their projects. Though designed specifically for the City of Boston, the checklist could be used or modified for other coastal cities.

Greening Boston: The Climate Change Preparedness and Resiliency Checklist

Since colonial times, Boston has been a center of economic, social, and cultural activity. As the largest city in New England, it remains at the heart of economic opportunities for this region of the United States.

Asheville Makes a Plan for Climate Resilience

An "eye-opening experience"

Drought Resiliency Planning Prepares Stakeholders for New Conditions

Fresh out of graduate school, Chris Carparelli joined AmeriCorps and put his education to work by serving the community. Though he had few financial resources at his disposal, Carparelli used his knowledge of water management and drought planning—and worked extensively with a comprehensive set of stakeholders—to develop a drought resiliency plan for the Beaverhead Watershed of Montana.

Populations at Risk

Populations at Risk (PAR) is a free, quick, and easy-to-use web-based tool to generate reports on demographics within areas of interest. The reports can help decision makers learn which populations are more likely to experience adverse social, health, and economic outcomes due to their race, age, gender, poverty status, and other socioeconomic measures.

Coastal and Waterfront SmartGrowth

Developed in consultation with the national Smart Growth Network, this interagency guide builds on the network's ten smart growth principles to create coastal and waterfront-specific strategies for development.

Smart Growth Fixes for Climate Adaptation and Resilience

This tool—a downloadable PDF—can help local government officials, staff, and boards find strategies to prepare for climate change impacts through land use and building policies. These policy options bring multiple short- and long-term environmental, economic, health, and societal benefits that can not only prepare a community and its residents and businesses for the impacts of climate change, but also improve everyday life.

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