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.

A Community Works Together to Reduce Damages from Flooding

The Village of Walton, New York worked with their Soil and Water Conservation District to engage community members in decisions about flooding in their community. The Village eventually took action to restore portions of the floodplain to reduce flooding.

A Coral Bleaching Story With an Unknown Ending

Changing ocean conditions pose an increasing threat to the health and resilience of coral reefs. Across the two Samoas—American Samoa and the Independent State of Samoa—people are planning to protect these important ecosystems.

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.

Ice damage to a camp near Golovin, Alaska

Addressing Links Between Climate and Public Health in Alaska Native Villages

As the environment changes, a public health group helps people understand—and build resilience to—climate change impacts on community health.

Panorama of downtown Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville Makes a Plan for Climate Resilience

This western North Carolina city is using the Steps to Resilience to proactively plan for expected climate change impacts.

Building Resilience in the Face of Ocean Acidification

The Alutiiq Pride Shellfish Hatchery in Seward, Alaska, is collaborating with federal and academic partners to measure the impacts of ocean acidification on shellfish—and develop possible adaptation strategies.

City of Fayetteville’s Watershed Master Program Screenshot

City of Fayetteville’s Watershed Master Plan

In order to better assess the severity of city-wide floods and create flood mitigation solutions, Fayetteville, North Carolina’s city officials embarked on a $13 million Watershed Master Plan program in 2019.

Climate Data Inform Recovery Plan for Endangered Butterfly

After a butterfly species disappeared from a location where it had been found for many years, conservation professionals accessed climate projections to identify potential habitat for its recovery.

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.

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.

Landscape with a lake in the foreground and snow-covered mountains in the background

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes: Applying the Values Taught by Our Ancestors

Incorporating elders’ wisdom in the process of systematically analyzing climate impacts and vulnerabilities in nine categories of tribal life prioritizes actions to take to enhance the evolution of an ancient culture, while protecting tribal traditions.

Self-service collard patch near Carthage, North Carolina

Developing an Early Warning System to Prevent Heat Illness

Residents of the Carolinas are familiar with hot summers, but in some areas excessive heat events bring a higher risk for heat-related illness—and even death. A new tool can help local communities get ahead of heat events so they can reduce risk for their residents.

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.

Drought Resiliency Planning Prepares Stakeholders for New Conditions

A national project inspired stakeholders in a rural area to document changing conditions and make a plan for drought. The effort left the area better prepared to address future changes.

Early Warning Information Increases Options for Drought Mitigation

In the growing season, farmers and ranchers keep a watchful eye for any sign of drought. Early warning information can increase their range of options for dealing with the lack of water.

A worker bee returns to the colony with its load of pollen

Field, Farm, Forest, and City: Sustaining Pollinator Health to Build Ecosystem Resilience

Climate variability and change are among the many threats that pollinators such as bees, butterflies, bats, and other species face. Beekeepers and pollinator advocates are working to preserve pollinators and the ecosystem that depends upon them.

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

Partners in the Keyswide Home Elevation Education Project developed trainings and informational materials to demystify the process and increase knowledge on home elevation. Materials help answer homeowners' and contractors' questions about costs, methods, barriers, permitting, duration, and financing.

How New Battery Capacity Helped California Avoid Another Blackout

New battery capacity in the form of battery energy storage (BES) units was a key difference-maker that contributed, along with demand response, to preventing blackouts during California’s extreme heatwave in September 2022.

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.

Restoring native longleaf pine ecosystems on the Francis Marion National Forest may include the use of management strategies like prescribed burning.

Incorporating Climate Change Into a New Forest Management Plan

Facing sea level rise, increasing numbers of wildfires, and encroachment of invasive species, managers of a national forest chose to integrate climate change into their new plan.

Colorado National Guardsmen respond to floods in Boulder County, Colorado, on September 12, 2013

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Extreme Weather Leads to Collaboration in Boulder

The city charts its path to resilience by focusing on extreme weather and interdepartmental collaboration.

Iñupiat Work to Preserve Food and Traditions on Alaska's North Slope

Residents of North Slope Borough, Alaska, look to solar-powered ice cellars and other strategies to preserve their traditional whaling lifestyle.

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.

Maine's Lobster Fishing Community Confronts Their Changing Climate

Participatory planning and system dynamics modeling help fishermen in coastal Maine make decisions to improve their bottom lines.

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.

Mapping Wildland Values and Climate Change Vulnerability

Using climate change projections, conservationists can assess which of the wildest lands remaining in the contiguous United States are most vulnerable to the impacts of future climate change.

Promoting Ecotourism to Conserve a Watershed in Virginia

Realizing the Lower Chickahominy Watershed would one day be at risk of development for economic gain, the coastal planner with the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program decided to be proactive in exploring ideas for conserving this resource.

Waves crashing into basaltic rocks from lava flows on Hawai'i Island

Reality Check: Collaborative Research Contributes to Real-Life Policy Decisions

Innovative research efforts combined historic aerial photos, drone imagery, and topographic surveys to characterize coastal change around Hawai'i Island. The results are informing policy makers who are crafting a new setback policy for coastal development.

Dry, brown drought-stricken tropical vegetation

Recognizing and Responding to Drought on Pacific Islands

Compared to other extreme events, drought is a relatively quiet disaster. On Pacific Islands, where water supply depends very directly on precipitation, residents are working to recognize signs of drought and communicate them to others so that they can respond quickly.

Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council

To help communities identify shoreline adaptation projects, the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council proactively formed partnerships with stakeholders from 21 coastal municipalities. This relationship-building yielded understanding of local priorities and buy-in for potential projects.

$Ice wedges thaw along fracture lines of a tundra surface and water accumulates in small thaw lakes.$

U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit