Implementing the Steps to Resilience: A Practitioner's Guide is a user-friendly report containing a set of procedures to accompany each phase of the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit’s Steps to Resilience (StR). This document aims to support climate adaptation practitioners develop and implement equity-centered climate resilience plans in their communities.

Resilience is the capacity of a community, business, or natural environment to prevent, withstand, respond to, and recover from a disruption. Climate resilience refers to situations where the disruptions are related to climate. These include events such as extreme weather, drought, and flooding. Efforts to build climate resilience are increasingly seen as opportunities to prepare for changing climate conditions, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and address issues of social equity. Building resilience means improving conditions so that the system can accommodate future disruptions.

These graphs illustrate two levels of resilience. On the left, a community operates at a steady state until an acute hazard occurs. In response, the level of service drops below a tipping point; the community recovers somewhat, but suffers a permanent loss. On the right, actions taken prior to an acute hazard increase the community capacity. From this higher baseline, the same acute hazard still requires a period of recovery, but no irreversible damage occurs. Building resilience means improving conditions that help a community accommodate future disruptions.

To successfully implement a resilience plan, communities need capacity over the long term. Project implementation, monitoring and evaluation, community engagement about hazards and opportunities, ensuring that all relevant government operations incorporate up-to-date information about climate-related impacts, and sharing lessons learned with other practitioners all require staff with expertise and time to follow through.