Case Studies | U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

Communities, businesses, and individuals are taking action to document their vulnerabilities and build resilience to climate-related impacts. Click dots on the map to preview case studies, or browse stories below the map. Use the drop-down menus above to find stories of interest. To expand your results, click the Clear Filters link.

Photo of pararescueman Staff Sgt. Lopaka Mounts receiving a hug from a resident after Hurricane Ike, Sept. 13, 2008.

A Climate for Resilience

The City of Houston faces an array of climate vulnerabilities: flooding, drought, tropical cyclones, and extreme heat can all affect the city's population and industries. Government and non-profit agencies in the region combined their resources in a pilot project to plan for climate resilience.

The dock at China Champ, San Rafael, California

A Road-Flooding Fix for a California State Park

Flooding from rain and extreme high tides often leaves the road to San Francisco's China Camp State Park inaccessible. So a diverse group of stakeholders, with support from NOAA’s Science Collaborative team, proposed raising the road.

Panorama of the Homer Spit in Homer, Alaska

A Town with a Plan: Community, Climate, and Conversations

Homer, Alaska, has been taking action to reduce climate change for almost a decade. As the ten-year anniversary of their first plan looms on the horizon, the community is engaging in conversations about adaptation.

Exterior rendering of the proposed Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care Center

After Katrina, Health Care Facility's Infrastructure Planned to Withstand Future Flooding

After catastrophic flooding in New Orleans destroyed two hospitals, the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System is planning a replacement facility that will incorporate resilience against future extreme events.

Assessing a Tropical Estuary's Climate Change Risks

Puerto Rico's San Juan Bay Estuary faces multiple threats, including heavy use by urban populations and impacts of climate change. A workbook from the EPA's Climate Ready Estuaries program helped them catalog, prioritize, and address their climate risks.

Morro Bay, Morro Rock, and the City of Morro Bay

Assessing Climate Risks in a National Estuary

Stakeholders of the Morro Bay National Estuary Program in California worked with resources from the EPA's Climate Ready Estuaries program to identify their climate risks. Their results helped them prioritize actions for building resilience.

Assessing the Timing and Extent of Coastal Change in Western Alaska

An interactive map based on four decades of satellite images helps residents, resource managers, and stewards of the land anticipate and plan for coastal change.

Small community on the edge of a coastal wetland landscape.

Boosting Community Storm Resilience in Alaska

Many remote coastal communities in Alaska currently have no formal storm history data, flood risk analysis, or way to predict and assess flooding impacts to their communities. These communities are at risk of flooding due to climate change and other coastal hazards such as storms.

Sunrise on the beach at Corolla, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Building Resilience in the OBX

In North Carolina's Outer Banks, the coastal Town of Nags Head is vulnerable to flooding from heavy rain events, hurricanes, tropical storms, nor’easters, and storm surge. To add insult to injury, vulnerability is increasing with sea level rise. Town managers and residents recognized the need to build the town's resilience and moved forward to prioritize and plan.

Destruction to the Norwalk Calf Pasture Pier caused by Hurricane Sandy

Climate Preparedness Workshops Provide a Head Start Toward Resilience

After a series of extreme weather events, the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut, looked for ways to prepare for future storms. Their planning process had just started when they got hit again...

Shoreline at Ebey State Park, Whidbey Island, WA

Coastal Readiness Project Increases Hazard Readiness

A four-year multi-partner project empower's Washington State's coastal communities to strengthen their resilience to sea level rise, storm surges, wave impacts, and shoreline erosion.

Tropical vegetation along white sand beach

Collaborating for Success: Sustaining Water Supply on a Pacific Island

As El Niño can bring severe drying conditions to the islands of American Samoa, groups collaborated to ensure that decision makers have access to the local climate and water data they need to recognize—and prepare for—the threat of drought.

Collaboration Among Counties Improves Regional Vulnerability Assessments

To better prepare for current and future sea level rise, four counties in South Florida joined forces to agree upon consistent sea level rise mapping methods.

View of the Ruby Beach with large trees slightly obstructing the view. There are people exploring the beach which is filled with large rocks.

Community Leadership Paves the Way to Promising Erosion Treatment

A project that mimics aspects of cobble sand beaches virtually stopped the erosion of shoreline uplands in pilot studies aided by NOAA and Washington State’s coastal zone management program.

A view of the sea from the dock behind the dunes.

Community-Led Resilience Program Leads to Shovel-Ready Projects

Learn how the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management is helping communities build their resilience to coastal flood hazards through an incentive-based program that provides planning and funding for nature-based projects.

Waves chip away at land below a beachfront home

Confronting Shoreline Erosion on O‘ahu

Each winter, massive waves attract surfers and visitors to the North Shore of O‘ahu in Hawai‘i. Some years, the waves cause severe erosion, and continuing sea level rise will accelerate this issue. Residents and the state are taking steps to preserve homes and beaches.

Old Harbor Life-Saving Station, Cape Cod National Seashore

County-Wide Collaboration Reduces Flood Risks and Insurance Rates

Residents of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, have found an unlikely but financially rewarding pairing: county efforts to keep mosquito populations under control are reducing residents' flood insurance premiums.

Skyline of highrise buildings and shipping cranes with mountains in the background

Creating a Model Climate Resilient City

The City of Long Beach, California, sees signs of climate change on land and in the ocean. After compiling the City's official climate assessment report, local stakeholders also produced a more accessible and user-friendly summary version and shared it broadly to stimulate informed discussion and decision making across the city.

Designing a Communications Handout About Sea Level Rise

Faced with episodic high-tide flooding, partners in Charleston, South Carolina, calculated the potential extent and frequency of similar flooding in the future. Focus group feedback on this information helped organizers design an informative fact sheet.

Developing the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Hazard Mitigation Plan

The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community developed their hazard mitigation plan with guidance from a framework for integrating Indigenous and traditional knowledge and practices into climate adaptation planning.

Photo of flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy in Brooklyn, New York

Elevated Rehabilitation Facility Functions Flawlessly Through Hurricane Sandy

Flood-resistant construction of Seagate Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Brooklyn helped staff and patients shelter in place through the storm.

Aerial view of the San Francisco Bay with the Bay Bridge in foreground.

Engaging Stakeholders in Planning for Sea Level Rise

Sea level rise is changing the shoreline of San Francisco Bay, endangering homes, habitats, and vital infrastructure. Stakeholders from a diverse array of sectors around the Bay are participating in preparations through a regional partnership.

Recreational boats on quiet water with seaside homes in background.

Exploring Adaptation Options for Water Infrastructure at Sea Level

In Massachusetts, Manchester-by-the-Sea's wastewater treatment plant is located right on the coast. The town's water utility is working with the EPA's Creating Resilient Water Utilities program to consider its adaptation options.

Grand Isle: Louisiana's First Line of Defense from Coastal Flooding

Lying directly south of New Orleans on Louisiana’s coast, Grand Isle often bears the brunt of strong waves and storm surge in the Gulf of Mexico. To protect this town and inland parishes from flooding, engineers constructed a first line of defense.

Greening Boston: The Climate Change Preparedness and Resiliency Checklist

To build the city's resilience, Boston requires that new buildings and renovation projects follow best practices for climate change adaptation.

Home Elevation Program Helps Demystify The Process

Click the link below to read the Peer-to-Peer Case Study by NOAA's Digital Coast: Home Elevation Program Helps Demystify The Process

In the Dark of Monday Morning: Waves Inundate a Pacific Island Community

People who live on low-lying islands are reminded daily of the threat they face from coastal flooding. An unexpected disaster prompted a community in the Republic of the Marshall Islands to consider how to notify people of potential events and help them know how to respond.

Increasing Transportation Resilience in the Gulf Coast

A federal study assessed vulnerabilities of transportation infrastructure to extreme events in Mobile, Alabama. The effort also resulted in tools and approaches that other transportation departments can use to assess and address their own vulnerabilities.

Photo of Spaulding Rehab Hospital in Boston, MA

Investment in Infrastructure at Sea-Level Hospital Will Pay Off by Reducing Risk

Built very close to sea level, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston implemented innovative strategies to keep critical infrastructure and patient care above future flood levels.

Photo of "Old Red" building on UTMB campus, Galveston Island, Texas

Island Medical Campus Recovers, Rebuilds to Face Future Storms

In the wake of a hurricane and beset by an economic recession, the University of Texas Medical Branch on Galveston Island rebuilt for future resilience.

Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe Plans for Change on the Olympic Peninsula

With valuable cultural and dietary assets at risk from sea level rise, this Pacific Northwest Tribe developed a plan to identify community adaptation priorities and concerns, and charted a course of action to address them.

Luck Is Not a Policy We Can Count On: Boston Takes a Proactive Approach to Climate Adaptation

After witnessing what happened in New York City during Hurricane Sandy, Boston city leaders were determined to get ahead of their potential problems. To do so, they convened a diverse coalition of residents and worked to craft a comprehensive plan to adapt to climate change.

Mandeville, Louisiana: A City that Stays Afloat by Promoting Elevations

The City of Mandeville, located in St. Tammany Parish, decided to commit to helping residents escape troublesome flood waters. Finally tiring of the constant issue of a repeated damage-repair cycle, city officials decided to act by adopting high regulatory standards for the elevation of homes and businesses.

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