Access a range of climate-related reports issued by government agencies and scientific organizations. Browse the reports listed below, or filter by scope, content, or focus in the boxes above. To expand your results, click the Clear Filters link.

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Published
June 2022

To become climate resilient requires collective action. Our efforts must take a Whole-of-Government and Whole Community approach.

The Resilient Nation Partnership Network is working to address this through partnership. The result of our collective action is this Building Alliances for Climate Action resource. It is the work of many organizations and individuals, including federal representatives, faith leaders, community-based organizations, mayors and many more. At a time when many are searching for direction on how to address the climate crisis, this resource represents a unifying voice, helping guide the Whole Community forward

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Published
April 2022

Heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States. As average global temperatures continue to rise, the threats of both extreme heat events and chronic heat are projected to increase.

Heat disproportionately affects marginalized residents and those who face systematic inequities such as workplace safety, housing quality, energy affordability, transportation reliability, and healthcare access. But planning can shape heat risk. Planners will be key practitioners in helping their communities achieve greater heat resiliency by proactively managing and mitigating heat across the many systems and sectors it affects.

PAS Report 600 provides holistic guidance to help practitioners increase urban heat resilience equitably in the communities they serve. It provides an in-depth overview of the contributors to urban heat and equity implications, and it lays out an urban heat resilience framework and collection of strategies to help planners mitigate and manage heat across a variety of plans, policies, and actions.

Published
February 2022

The Sea Level Rise Technical Report provides the most up-to-date sea level rise projections available for all U.S. states and territories; decision-makers will look to it for information.

This multi-agency effort, representing the first update since 2017, offers projections out to the year 2150 and information to help communities assess potential changes in average tide heights and height-specific threshold frequencies as they strive to adapt to sea level rise.

Report cover with words: Initial Vermont Climate Action Plan
Published
December 2021

The Vermont Climate Action Plan aims to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, help protect Vermont communities and landscapes from the greatest risks of climate change, and create new clean energy industry and jobs. The Climate Action Plan includes strategies to:

  1. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation, building, regulated utility, industrial, commercial, and agricultural sectors;
  2. Encourage smart growth and related strategies;
  3. Achieve long-term sequestration and storage of carbon and promote best management practices to achieve climate mitigation, adaption, and resilience on natural working lands;
  4. Achieve net zero emissions by 2050 across all sectors;
  5. Reduce energy burdens for rural and marginalized communities;
  6. Limit the use of chemicals, substances, or products that contribute to climate change; and
  7. Build and encourage climate adaptation and resilience of Vermont communities and natural systems.

The Climate Action Plan serves as a guide for the Vermont Legislature in setting policy that supports climate change solutions for Vermonters and Vermont's landscape. 

A range of resources documenting report preparation are available in the Climate Action Plan Appendices.

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Published
October 2021

Every day, Americans make decisions that are relevant to their current and future resilience to climate change. How much water will their crops or livestock need this year? How high should a bridge be built
to withstand future flooding? Where can they purchase a home without worrying about the risks of wildfire or storm surge?

Having access to useful climate services will enable individuals, governments, business, and organizations to make decisions based on sound science. Advancing the development, communication, and accessibility of climate services will require a whole-of-government approach, with increased collaborations between science providers and agencies who work closely with communities. And addressing climate-related challenges, such as those associated with drought, wildfire, flooding, coastal resilience, and extreme heat can provide timely opportunities for engagement and progress.

Deep sea divers in SCUBA gear float around a large underwater marine reef surrounded by a sea of teal and blue water.
Published
August 2021

Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, requires that each Federal agency develop a Climate Action Plan for Adaptation and Resilience. This plan highlights the important role the Department of Commerce plays in advancing climate adaptation and resilience. The actions captured in this Plan, as well as the broader work of the Department to address the climate crisis, support the Department’s mission to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity.

Sections in this report include:
  • Why Is Climate Adaptation & Resilience Planning Important for the Department of Commerce?
  • Efforts to Enhance Climate Literacy into the Management Workforce
  • Climate Vulnerability Assessment
  • Actions to Enhance Climate Adaptation and Resilience with Climate-Ready Sites and Facilities 
  • Actions to Enhance Climate Adaptation and Resilience with Climate-Ready Products and Services
  • Priority Climate Adaptation and Resilience Actions
Screenshot of the Leading Practices in Climate Adaptation report.
Published
July 2021

This collection of leading practices in climate adaptation covers a suite of climate adaptation actions and is intended to broadly promote collaborative learning. Each practice in the collection is explained and supported by concrete examples. These practices are drawn from WUCA work products and WUCA members' experiences, and, when possible, connected to relevant resources and related efforts. Most of these practices are appropriate for water utilities of any size, as well as other sectors interested in climate adaptation.

The current practices and where they are placed within the five essential climate adaptation action areas:

  • Engage
  • Understand
  • Plan
  • Implement
  • Sustain

It is important to note that these action areas and leading practices are not prioritized. Instead, the most useful practices depend on the individual organization's needs and priorities.

Published
April 2021

Planning for a Changing Climate guides NPS planners and managers in developing robust climate change adaptation strategies to better protect park resources and assets today and for future generations. The guide derives from Climate-Smart Conservation, the product of an interagency and nongovernmental organization partnership led by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). Planning for a Changing Climate incorporates scenario planning concepts in the climate-smart framework to advance adaptation planning in the National Park Service

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Published
March 2021

This Guide is written for practitioners already using or wanting to use future climate information in their work, but who are not familiar with the underlying assumptions and choices surrounding climate data. Here, we introduce the climate model scenarios that are used to “drive” climate models forward in time. These scenarios are a combination of socioeconomic and climate forcing pathways. We summarize differences between these scenarios for the Great Lakes region to show users how their choice of model scenario affects future temperature and precipitation projections.

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Published
February 2021

To plan for future sea level rise, Miami-Dade County relies on the 2019 Unified Sea Level Rise Projection for Southeast Florida developed by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact. These projections are revised every five years to ensure they reflect the best available science. Based on these consensus projections, they expect sea levels to be approximately two feet higher 40 years from 2019 levels and continue rising beyond that.

Published
February 2021

This report's subtitle is Managing the Uncertainty of Future Sea Level Change and Extreme Water Levels for Department of Defence Coastal Sites Worldwide.

From the Executive Summary: Global change, including climate change, poses unique challenges to the Department of Defense (DoD). In particular, coastal military sites, and their associated natural and built infrastructure, operations, and readiness capabilities, are vulnerable to the impacts of rising global sea level and local extreme water level (EWL) events. This report and its accompanying scenario database provide regionalized sea level and EWL scenarios for three future time horizons (2035, 2065, and 2100) for 1,774 DoD sites worldwide. The global nature of DoD’s presence required a broad and comprehensive approach that to this point has been lacking in similar efforts.

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Published
December 2020

The 2020 State Climate Strategy informs policymaking on how Nevada will achieve the ambitious targets established by SB 254 and provides an integrated framework for evaluating climate policies that make sense for Nevada. This will optimize effectiveness of each given policy and therefore maximize the benefits for all Nevadans. By taking a smart, strategic approach to addressing climate change in Nevada, the state can fully capture the economic benefits of clean technologies and lead the way in the neighboring Western states.

Cover of RAD report with a split view of stressed and dead trees
Published
December 2020

The National Park Service and other federal land management agency partners offer Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD)—A Decision Framework for the 21st-century Natural Resource Manager. The report presents and explores a simple set of distinct management options that decision makers can consider when responding to ecosystems facing the potential for rapid, irreversible ecological change. In so doing, the report provides a framework that encourages natural resource managers to consider strategic, forward-looking actions, rather than structure management goals based on past conditions.  

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Published
December 2020

This report highlights the equity implications of sea level rise in the first nationwide assessment of risk to the country’s affordable housing supply. As climate change causes sea levels to rise, the number of affordable housing units at risk of coastal flooding is projected to more than triple to nearly 25,000 nationwide over the next 30 years.

Published
October 2020

This guidance aims to enhance the capacity of health care facilities to protect and improve the health of their target communities in an unstable and changing climate. The document also intends to empower health care facilities to be environmentally sustainable, by optimizing the use of their resources and minimizing the release of waste into the environment. Climate resilient and environmentally sustainable health care facilities contribute to high quality of care and accessibility of services, and by helping reduce facility costs also ensure better affordability. 

This document aims to:

  • Guide professionals working in health care settings to understand and effectively prepare for the additional health risks posed by climate change.
  • Monitor, anticipate, manage and adapt to the health risks associated with climate change.
  • Guide health care facility officials to work with health determining sectors (including water and sanitation, energy, transportation, food, urban planning, environment) to prepare for additional health risks posed by climate change through a resilience approach, and to promote environmentally sustainable practices in providing these services.
  • Provide tools to assist health care facility officials assess their resilience to climate change threats, and their environmental sustainability based upon the appropriate use of resources (in particular water and energy and sustainable procurement), and release of hazards (biological, chemical, radiological), to their surrounding environment.
  • Promote actions to ensure that health care facilities are constantly and increasingly strengthened and continue to be efficient and responsive to improve health and contribute to reducing inequities and vulnerability within their local settings.
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Published
September 2020

This report presents recommendations for how state governments can develop climate-resilience financial systems that help local communities invest in protecting residents, businesses, public infrastructure, private property, and natural resources from climate-driven stresses and shocks. To help states consider and act on the recommendations, a State Climate Resilience Action Checklist (page 50) identifies the essential actions that states need to take to build a comprehensive approach to resilience, including a financial system. The report also offers an Inventory of Climate Resilience Actions.

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Published
July 2020

This guide is intended to help communities in Michigan and across the Great Lakes Region develop a climate and health adaptation plan or to integrate climate and health concepts into existing initiatives. A climate and health adaptation plan is defined here as a strategy document that fosters collaboration across disciplines and interest groups to instigate a series of activities toward the common objectives of understanding and then preventing or reducing the anticipated health impacts of climate change in the area.

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Published
July 2020

Climate migration—the preemptive movement of people and property away from areas experiencing severe impacts—is one way to improve climate resilience. This report reviews federal support for climate migration, examining the use of climate migration as a resilience strategy, federal support for climate migration, key challenges to climate migration, and how the federal government can address them. A literature review and interviews with climate resilience experts was conducted, with 46 stakeholders selected and interviewed in four communities that have considered relocation: Newtok, Alaska; Santa Rosa, California; Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana; and Smith Island, Maryland.

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Published
April 2020

In the third quarter of 2017, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria revealed some significant vulnerabilities in the national and regional supply chains of Texas, Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Drawing on lessons learned during the 2017 hurricanes, this report explores future strategies to improve supply chain management in disaster situations. It makes recommendations to strengthen the roles of continuity planning, partnerships between civic leaders with small businesses, and infrastructure investment to ensure that essential supply chains will remain operational in the next major disaster. Focusing on the supply chains food, fuel, water, pharmaceutical, and medical supplies, the recommendations of this report will assist FEMA as well as state and local officials, private sector decision makers, civic leaders, and others who can help ensure that supply chains remain robust and resilient in the face of natural disasters.

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Published
December 2019

A growing number of local governments are taking steps toward climate adaptation, mostly through the development of climate adaptation plans. However, the rate and pace of adaptation action has significantly lagged behind planning, especially in mid- and small-sized municipalities where resources are often limited and local politics may further delay action. This report describes how to use economics to build support for climate adaptation. Using case studies from cities large and small, it highlights how to effectively use economic data and methods, provides eight types of economic analyses for climate adaptation, and explains how to clearly communicate economic data to different audiences.

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Published
April 2019

The guidance provided by this report is designed to help all communities create disaster debris management plans. It assists communities in planning for natural disaster debris before disasters—such as hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, floods, wildfires, and winter storms—occur by providing useful, relevant information intended to increase community preparedness and resiliency. The report includes recommended components of a debris management plan, suggested management options for various natural disaster debris streams, a collection of case studies that highlights how several communities prepared for and managed debris generated by recent natural disasters, resources to consult in planning for natural disasters, and the EPA’s recommended pre-incident planning process to help prepare communities for effective disaster debris management.

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Published
April 2019

The Beloved Community is a vision for our future where all people share equally in the wealth and bounty of the earth, where we protect its abundance, diversity, and beauty for future generations. In this vision of liberation, racism, exploitation, and domination are replaced by democracy, cooperation, interdependence, and love. To get there, we pursue transformative, systems-change solutions. What do we mean by this? The root causes of the problems our communities face—like climate change, racism, and economic inequality—are all deeply connected. Since the problems are connected, so are the solutions. The purpose of this toolkit is to put us on the path toward achieving this vision. Through the context of building equity and resilience into climate adaptation planning, we introduce strategies to transform our communities and, by extension, society. Our ultimate goal is to create lasting and systemic change. At the same time, we recognize the urgency of the issues our communities face and the need to take action now. That is why we pursue change at every scale—from policy changes to community-based projects—to institute the transformative change we need to uphold our vision of the beloved community.

Cover of report with tree and people
Published
March 2019

The frequency and severity of disasters over the last few decades have presented unprecedented challenges for communities across the United States. This report summarizes the existing portfolio of relevant or related resilience measurement efforts and notes gaps and challenges associated with them. It describes how some communities build and measure resilience, and offers four key actions that communities could take to build and measure their resilience to address gaps identified in current community resilience measurement efforts. The report also provides recommendations to the Gulf Research Program to build and measure resilience in the Gulf of Mexico region.

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Published
November 2018

This report offers the first national assessment of the scope and consequences of urban flooding in the United States. Researchers analyzed available data concerning urban flooding, surveyed municipal flood and stormwater managers, and met with professionals whose disciplines intersect with urban flooding at the local, state, and national level. The research team's findings affirm that urban flooding is a national and significant source of economic loss, social disruption, and housing inequality. This report presents the full results of the study, addresses governance issues that affect urban flood risk reduction, examines critical challenges, and offers recommendations for actions.

Measuring Multimodal Network Connectivity Guidebook Cover
Published
February 2018

This guidebook outlines five core components of multimodal network connectivity, as listed below, with a focus on pedestrians and bicyclists. While these components are all related, the distinctions between them provide a framework for selecting connectivity measures that address specific questions. Multimodel networks are accessible, interconnected pedestrian and/or bicycle transportation facilities that allow all users to safely and conveniently get where they want to go.

The guidebook describes analysis methods and supporting measures associated with each of these components:

  • Network completeness - How much of the transportation network is available to bicyclists and pedestrians?
  • Network density - How dense are the available links and nodes of the bicycle and pedestrian network?
  • Route directness - How far out of their way do users have to travel to find a facility they can or want to use?
  • Access to destinations - What destinations can be reached using the transportation network?
  • Network quality - How does the network support users of varying levels of experience, ages, abilities, and comfort with bicycling or walking?
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Published
January 2018

The goal of this concerted effort is to help Thurston County (Washington) and the broader South Puget Sound region prepare for and adjust to climate change. The Thurston Regional Planning Council crafted this document with a $250,000 National Estuary Program grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and significant in-kind support from the community. Partners included representatives from tribes, municipalities, universities, nonprofits, businesses, and other entities within the project area: three geographically diverse watersheds (Nisqually, Deschutes, and Kennedy-Goldsborough) within Thurston County that drain into Puget Sound. The watersheds encompass beaches, rivers, lakes, wetlands, highlands, forests, farms, ranches, cities, towns, and tribal reservations. It is the Council's hope that other communities throughout the Puget Sound region, state, and nation will replicate this project’s science-based assessments, innovative public-engagement efforts (including development of a resilience game), collaborative planning processes, economic analyses, and comprehensive actions.

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Published
November 2017

The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is developing a Climate Change Preparedness and Resilience Plan as a practical guide to implement specific strategies in response to climate change threats (heat, flooding from precipitation, flooding from sea level rise and storm surge). The Alewife Preparedness Plan—the first neighborhood plan to be developed—will test how the proposed strategies might create a new framework for resiliency in Alewife. It comprises two parts: a Report and a Handbook. The Report provides the context, framework, and strategies to create a prepared and resilient Alewife neighborhood; the Handbook, a companion document, is a practical compendium of specific preparedness and resiliency strategies and best practices.

Published
October 2017

A coalition of 26 businesses, environmental organizations, community groups, and universities in the Detroit area has produced the “Detroit Climate Action Plan.” The proposition intends to address public health and environmental justice issues through a plan that individuals and businesses can practice. The 77-page report contains 20 major goals for the coming years, including calls for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by Detroit businesses by 10 percent in the next 5 years, and 80 percent by 2050. Additionally, the plan recommends improvements to the energy efficiency and durability of homes, better stormwater runoff management, expanded use of renewable energy, and broadened recycling and organic waste collection by 2022.

Cover of Nags Head Comprehensive Plan
Published
July 2017

The Nags Head Comprehensive Plan is an official policy document adopted by the Town of Nags Head to strategically plan for and enhance the quality of life and physical character of the community. The plan, while not regulatory in nature, builds upon adopted plans and policies to provide a foundation for decision making, future regulations, and project development. Further, the plan was created utilizing community input to illustrate a vision for the future of Nags Head and define steps to secure that future.

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Published
April 2017

The Tampa Bay region is known as one of the most vulnerable in the world to wind damage, coastal flooding from storm surge, and rising sea levels. The City of St. Petersburg—with over 60 miles of coastal frontage—has already felt the impacts of storms. The adverse effects from these types of environmental events often impact low-income communities the hardest, as they have the most difficulty bouncing back from stresses and shocks. The City of St. Petersburg is committed to ensuring that investments in making the city resilient are equitable and create a range of opportunities that everyone can benefit from. The Urban Land Institute of Tampa Bay convened top experts in climate resilience from New Orleans, Miami, Boston, and the Tampa Bay region to provide technical assistance to the city on creating an equitable culture of resilience. A grant from the ULI Foundation and Kresge Foundation funded this effort.

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Published
March 2017

This guidebook results from the culmination of a year of dialogue among diverse stakeholders in southeastern Connecticut who defined challenges and solutions from extreme weather, climate change, and shifting social and economic conditions. Participants included representatives from nine municipalities, public and private utilities, public health departments, chambers of commerce, major employers, conservation organizations, academic institutions, community non-profits, and state agencies, among others. The dialogue captured six themed planning sectors (water, food, ecosystem services, transportation, energy, and regional economy) in a process that used surface and integrated solutions to address singular and multiple challenges across planning sectors. The guidebook provides a quick reference resource to help shape and inform actions that will advance a regional resilience framework for southeastern Connecticut; an accompanying Summary of Findings captures the project's final outcomes and conclusions, as well as providing a comprehensive account of the objectives, process, and details. 

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Published
March 2017

This plan sets forth the 2017 federal policy platform of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, an association of 75 U.S. mayors along the Mississippi River. The document sets forth the mayors’ recommendation of federal programs to support and strengthen the built and natural infrastructure of the Mississippi River corridor, proposing specific funding levels and support of several federal programs. Suggestions for finance mechanisms to restore Mississippi River infrastructure are also included. 

Plan Cover
Published
February 2017

This draft Regional Action Plan in support of NOAA Fisheries Climate Science Strategy helps communicate a regional vision for climate-related science in the South Atlantic, providing a framework for scientists and managers to prioritize and accomplish research on climate-related impacts to marine and coastal ecosystems. It promotes scientists working with partners and the management community to construct management approaches that ensure the development of science-based strategies to sustain marine resources and resource-dependent coastal communities in a changing climate. Highlights include establishing a NOAA Fisheries South Atlantic Climate Science Team, expanding scientific expertise and partnerships, conducting vulnerability assessments for South Atlantic species, and drafting a South Atlantic Ecosystem Status Report. The draft was available for public comment through March 24, 2017; the Plan will be finalized in summer 2017.

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Published
February 2017

This user-friendly summary is based on the 2015 report “City of Long Beach Climate Resiliency Assessment Report" and “Appendices” prepared by the Aquarium of the Pacific at the request of Mayor Robert Garcia. The report includes clear infographics that describe current and projected conditions in the city. It also describe what the city is currently doing and what else the city and its residents can do.

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Published
January 2017

This report summarizes findings from a workshop held in El Paso, Texas, on July 13, 2016. The El Paso-Juárez-Las Cruces region is home to approximately 2.4 million people, most of whom are living in or near the urban centers of Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua), El Paso, and Las Cruces (New Mexico). These cities share characteristics, such as a high proportion of residents of Hispanic origin, median income below the U.S. national average, and a range of climate-related environmental issues that include drought, flooding, air pollution, dust storms, and frequent occurrences of extremely high temperatures during the late spring and early summer. With hotter temperatures and more frequent and persistent heat waves projected for the El Paso-Juárez-Las Cruces region, it is critical to develop more robust systems of institutions, social learning, and partnerships to understand risks and strengthen public health resilience.

Action Plan Cover
Published
December 2016

The Northeast Regional Action Plan was developed to increase the production, delivery, and use of climate-related information to fulfill the NOAA Fisheries mission in the region, and identifies priority needs and specific actions to implement the NOAA Fisheries Climate Science Strategy in the Northeast over the next three to five years. The U.S. Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem supports a number of economically important fisheries and a wide variety of other important marine and coastal species, from river herring to marine mammals and sea turtles. The region has experienced rising ocean temperatures over the past several decades, along with shifts in the distribution of many fish stocks poleward or deeper. Other expected climate-related changes include sea level rise, decreasing pH (acidification), and changing circulation patterns that could impact marine resources, their habitats, and the people, businesses, and communities that depend on them.

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