The Adaptation Tool Kit is designed to help policymakers manage the complexity of adaptation by identifying and organizing adaptation tools. For each tool, the Tool Kit describes the tool, how it can be used to facilitate adaptation, sources that have proposed use of the tool for adaptation purposes, and examples of programs that have implemented the tool. 

The Tool Kit describes each potential adaptation tool by:

• the type of power exercised to implement it (planning, regulatory, spending, or tax- and market-based tools);
• the policy objective that it facilitates (protection, accommodation, planned retreat, or preservation); and
• the type of existing or potential land uses that the tool can be used to adapt (critical infrastructure, existing development, developable lands, and undevelopable lands).

The Tool Kit also offers top-level analysis of the economic, environmental, and social costs and benefits of each tool, and the legal and administrative feasibility of implementing them. The 18 adaptation measures described in the Tool Kit are:

1. Comprehensive Plans
2. Zoning and Overlay Zones
3. Floodplain Regulations
4. Building Codes and Resilient Design
5. Setbacks/Buffers
6. Conditional Development and Exactions
7. Rebuilding Restrictions
8. Subdivisions and Cluster Development
9. Hard-Armoring Permits
10. Soft-Armoring Permits
11. Rolling Coastal Management/Rolling Easement Statutes
12. Capital Improvement Programs
13. Acquisitions and Buyout Programs
14. Conservation Easements
15. Rolling Conservation Easements
16. Tax and Other Development Incentive
17. Transferable Development Credits
18. Real Estate Disclosures