Municipalities in the Great Lakes Region are already experiencing the effects of climate change—from flooding to extreme temperatures to winter storms to high winds. Great Lakes cities, however, are at different stages of preparedness for extreme weather associated with climate change.

Through a collaboration with AECOM, the City of Gary, Indiana, and the University of Michigan’s Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessment (GLISA), the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative has developed the Climate Ready Infrastructure and Strategic Sites Protocol (CRISSP). The protocol relies on available data and municipal staff’s own knowledge of their facilities and infrastructure to assess their assets’ vulnerability to extreme weather in a way that is both relatively quick and low-cost.

The CRISSP guides your municipality through a step-by-step process to assemble a team; gather relevant information on hazards and climate data; identify municipal infrastructure, facilities, and sites located in extreme weather hazard zones; and perform a vulnerability assessment on them. A key aspect of the CRISSP is a helpful, easy-to-use Risk Matrix tool that takes users through a series of critical questions to assess the vulnerability of municipal facilities, sites, or infrastructure.

Funding for this project was provided by GLISA. GLISA is one of NOAA's eleven Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) regional teams, dedicated to helping the nation prepare for and adapt to climate variability and change.