U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

Learn an approach for identifying your community’s coastal hazard issues, ecosystem services that can reduce hazard impacts, and green infrastructure practices that can provide those services. Develop the beginnings of a community green infrastructure plan.

An ArcGIS Tutorial Series to help users apply the geographic approach for climate resilience planning. Using a climate resilience planning process—the Steps to Resilience documented in the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit—this curriculum is designed to help you use geographic information systems to document climate hazards that could harm the people and places you care about, decide which situations you most want to avoid, and come up with workable solutions to reduce your climate-related risks.

Gulf TREE is a climate resilience tool search engine that allows users to access relevant tools quickly, easily, and confidently. The site walks users through a series of questions that help them identify the best climate tool for their needs. This Gulf TREE training kit allows you or a small group of people to complete the training and become a power user on your own or you can use this kit to train others to become power users.

Developed for stormwater and floodplain managers, as well as land use planners, this interactive website incorporates tools and methods to derive critical coastal water-level thresholds, as well as assess the potential impacts of exceeding those thresholds on stormwater infrastructure. Managers can take various actions to address the issue, and this guide introduces planning, policy, on-the-ground, and funding options.

This series consists of two recorded webinars that intend to build foundational knowledge about funding and financing approaches used to support coastal resilience activities. Learn from experts, who will demystify this complex topic by sharing traditional and emerging approaches, project examples, and lessons learned. The first webinar explores options for funding and financing coastal resilience projects and provides the foundation for future trainings on this topic. The second webinar discusses the use of Environmental Impact Bonds to finance coastal resilience efforts. Experts provide an overview of these bonds, how one was developed to finance coastal resilience efforts in Hampton, Virginia, and lessons learned throughout the process.

The practices described in this handout can be used to reduce flooding and help communities design a green infrastructure strategy. It should be noted that while green infrastructure practices make communities more resilient, flooding might not be totally alleviated. Topics explored in this training include green infrastructure practices, considerations for planning and implementation, and guidance on estimating storage potential and costs. This document is a companion piece to the NOAA's Process Guide for Assessing Costs and Benefits of Green Infrastructure for Flood Mitigation.

When communities reduce flood risk, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can offer discounts on flood insurance premiums for policyholders. Participant communities in FEMA’s Community Rating System receive credits to determine the amount. One way to earn credits is by preserving floodplains. Conserving this open space and implementing land use policies that encourage development away from wetlands, dunes, and other naturally protective features allows a floodplain to serve its natural function and absorb excess water during a flood event. This “how-to” provides a step-by-step approach for earning this credit in areas that are already protected, and identifying places where additional credit could be earned through future preservation efforts. It also provides templates and worksheets to compile verification information. The steps draw from FEMA’s Community Rating System Coordinator’s Manual, and reference related elements in other Community Rating System activities, such as floodplain mapping.

These guidelines provide the steps to obtain flood threshold guidelines for a study area, calculate total water level using the Inundation Analysis Tool, and calculate flooding statistics considering future sea level rise scenarios.

To plan successfully, communities need to understand the options for addressing flood-related issues and their associated costs. This guide lays out a six-step watershed-based approach for documenting the costs of flooding, projecting increased flooding and associated costs under future land use and climate conditions, and calculating the long-term benefits and costs of a green infrastructure approach. The guide draws from four case studies (Duluth, Minnesota; Toledo, Ohio; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and He‘eia, Hawaii) to provide key considerations, recommended expertise, practical implementation tips, and lessons learned.

The objective of this training is to enable National Weather Service field staff to identify appropriate sources of climate data, products, and information. This is the first of six Professional Competency Units (PCU) in the National Weather Service Climate Services Professional Development Series. Note that there is a second component of this PCU that includes an in-person Operational Climate Services Residence Training.