U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

This collection of quick references can help you find, prepare, and submit federal grant applications. Learning Outcomes from this training include: (1) Understand how to read the critical components of a federal notice of funding opportunity (NOFO); (2) Identify the key items needed to develop a competitive grant proposal; (3) Outline your own grant proposal using a worksheet with guidance to draft your project goals, plan, budget, and outreach

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.

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.

Free online training to help rural communities become more resilient to extreme weather and changing climate conditions. RRAP Module 1: Resilient Land Use Planning - Integrating Land Use Strategies in Comprehensive Plans RRAP Module 2: Rural Flood Mitigation - Implementing Resilient Land Use Strategies for Flood Mitigation

This course will help to enhance community leaders' understanding of natural disasters, risk assessment in the context of disaster management, prevailing emergency management procedures and operations, and the different vulnerability factors that exist within their local community. The course will also provide participants with an understanding of the necessary plans and tools needed in planning for natural disasters and will help them to better understand and identify the personnel best equipped to address response and recovery requirements in the case of an actual disaster. The goal of this course is to provide community leaders with information on natural hazards and disasters, improve community disaster preparedness, and strengthen community partnerships.

Flooding hazards can threaten any community in any location in the United States. Flooding can occur over a period of weeks or days, or minutes, thus this course focuses the identification and assessment of hazards due to flooding to enable proper preparedness and response. As flooding is one of the top meteorological killers in the United States, and poses particular hazards to emergency responders, this introduction to recognizing flooding threats is essential for developing safe communities. Flooding Hazards: Science and Preparedness is an awareness-level, eight-hour course that addresses the current science of the causes of floods (both meteorological and otherwise), flood forecasting, flood risk assessment, and best practices for preparation and mitigation for both short- and long-fuse flooding events. Key concepts and discussion topics will be reinforced with facilitator-led group activities that utilize real-world flood scenarios. These activities will illustrate the diverse challenges and complexities that can occur during actual flood events while building participants' experience and confidence in anticipating, heeding warnings, and responding to floods.

This awareness-level, four-hour course provides participants with a general understanding of the risks associated with natural hazards and disasters, introduces methods of assessing that risk to vulnerable small businesses, and describes the business continuity planning process to help small businesses prepare for, plan for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from any natural hazard or disaster that may occur. Modules include instruction on identifying hazards to business operations through risk assessment and identifying financial disaster assistance programs and business interruption insurance programs.