Tools | U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

Tools are available to help you manage your climate-related risks and opportunities, and to help guide you in building resilience to extreme events. Browse the list below, or filter by topic and/or tool functionality in the boxes above. To expand your results, click the Clear Filters link.

Great Lakes Shoreviewer

Residents and businesses along Michigan's coastline can view aerial photographs and potential risk rankings for coastal property, buildings, roads, and infrastructure.

Screen capture of the library's home page

Great Lakes Silviculture Library

Forest managers in the Great Lakes can use this library to exchange forest plans and learn about the outcomes of on-the-ground management activities.

Great Lakes Water Level Dashboard

Businesses and residents in the Great Lakes region can use this dashboard to visualize dynamic water levels and seasonal and long-term forecasts.

A bright pink and orange sunset glows behind the Raleigh, NC skyline.

Heat Watch Campaigns

Over the past five years, the NOAA Office of Education, NOAA Climate Program Office, and the National Integrated Heat Health Information System have funded CAPA Heat Watch to support 40+ communities across the United States in mapping their urban heat islands.

Hoosier Resilience Index

Local communities in Indiana can use this tool to better understand their readiness and risks for environmental and climate change.

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Lake Level Viewer: United States Great Lakes

Visualize impacts of increased and decreased water levels in the Great Lakes in an online viewer, or access data and services directly to perform customized analyses.

LASSO—Locating and Selecting Scenarios Online

GIS specialists who need climate projection data can locate, select, and download files of climate change projections that align with given research questions or objectives.

Screen capture from Living With Dams PDF from FEMA

Living Near Dams

Communities located downstream from dams can learn about risks and find information about how to react if they fail. Dam owners, safety officials, and lawmakers can learn how extreme rainfall events affect the risk of dam failure, and how to reduce those risks.

Managed Retreat Toolkit

This online resource presents legal and policy tools, best and emerging practices, and case studies to support peer learning and decision making around managed retreat and climate adaptation.

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Midwest Glacial Lakes Partnership Conservation Planner

Access data to inform communication, management, and research that benefits fish habitat and lake ecosystems in the Great Lakes, Midwest, and Northern Great Plains.

MIKE-21 Spectral Waves

This professional software package helps engineers better predict the power of wind-waves, providing key input to breakwater design, wave agitation, and dynamic ship mooring modeling by establishing wave conditions adjacent to ports and terminals.

National Climate Change Viewer

Display maps, climographs, and histograms of projected change in temperature and precipitation from models in the CMIP5 experiment. Focus on any state, county, or hydrologic unit in the contiguous United States.

Rainbow Trout in Hand at Gechiak Creek from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy

Use this framework to take immediate, effective action toward building ecosystem resilience and maintaining ecosystem services in the face of climate challenges.

National Sea Grant Resilience Toolkit

Search for tools and resources developed by the Sea Grant Network to help coastal communities across the nation become more resilient.

Screen Capture from the National Stormwater Calculator

National Stormwater Calculator—Climate Assessment Tool

This desktop application provides estimates for the amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff anywhere in the United States. Its primary use is to inform site developers on how well they can meet a desired stormwater retention target with and without the use of green infrastructure.

National Water Information System: Mapper

This online, map-based tool provides access to water-related data for over 1.5 million sites in the United States. The data can be viewed in a web browser or downloaded in several different formats.

National Water Model

Emergency managers, reservoir operators, and other decision makers can consult the supercomputer-powered National Water Model for detailed forecasts of soil moisture, surface runoff, snow water equivalent, and other parameters.

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National Weather Service | National Seasonal Safety Campaign

Individuals, communities, and professionals can access seasonal resources to help them be prepared for extreme weather, water, and climate events.

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National Weather Service | Office of Services Publications

Visit this website to download publications, brochures, and booklets to help prepare for weather emergencies.

Thin layer of dredged sediment being spread to raise the target elevation for vegetation in this marsh

Nature-Based Solutions for Coastal Highway Resilience: An Implementation Guide

This Implementation Guide is designed to help transportation practitioners understand how and where nature-based and hybrid solutions can be used to improve the resilience of coastal roads and bridges.

Neighborhoods at Risk

View local maps of socioeconomic and climate data to identify communities that may be vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change, now and in the future. Obtain authoritative reports and data to make informed decisions when prioritizing capital improvements, informing land use and policy decisions, and updating Hazard Mitigation Plans.

NEWA—Network for Environment and Weather Applications

Growers in the Northeast can use this website to help make planting, pest management, and a range of other weather- and climate-based agricultural decisions.

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NOAA State of the Climate

View monthly reports and map graphics of climate conditions at the national and regional scales.

NOAA's Weather and Climate Toolkit

Download or launch this tool to help you sift through and visualize gigabytes of weather and climate data.

NorEaST: Stream Temperature Data Inventory

Access this mapping framework to find stream temperatures and other data for Northeast, Midwest, and Great Lakes states.

Northeast Indigenous Climate Resilience Network

This network seeks to convene indigenous peoples to identify threats to self-determination and ways of life and to formulate strategies, dialogues, and programs that build indigenous capacity to address climate-related issues.

OpenClimateGIS Software

With this downloadable software package, users gain ready access to climate model datasets in commonly used, modern geospatial formats used by GIS software, browser-based mapping tools, and virtual globes.

A large branch of a tree burns during a wildfire

Planning Framework for Protecting Commercial Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire Events

This planning framework provides recommended heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and building measures to minimize occupant exposures and health impacts from smoke during wildfire and prescribed burn events.

Populations at Risk

Climate change practitioners can use this tool to gather fine-scale information about populations within geographies of interest. Reports from the tool can be very useful for developing city-wide vulnerability assessments.

POWER Project Services Platform

NASA's Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER) project offers user communities data for solar and wind powered renewable energy systems, estimated building energy efficiency, and agroclimatology for crop models.

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Precipitation Frequency Data Server (PFDS)

Access precipitation frequency estimates for precipitation depth or intensity as tables, graphs, or GIS layers for any location in the contiguous United States.

Occluded mesocyclone tornado in 1999 near Anadarko, Oklahoma

Ready Campaign

Find information on how you and your family can best prepare to deal with a natural disaster or weather-related emergency. The site includes information for building an emergency supply kit and making a family emergency plan.

Graphic from the Extreme Heat Social Media Toolkit

Ready Campaign | Extreme Heat Safety Social Media Toolkit

Heat safety messages and graphics for use in social media outreach campaigns.

Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index

Access and interact with data on population-weighted heating and cooling degree days in the United States since 1895.

Screen capture from the Resilience Alliance website. Photo credit: Peter Prokosch

Resilience Assessment Resources and Projects

Natural resource managers can access a downloadable workbook and a database of ongoing projects to assess resilience in social-ecological systems.

Map of the contiguous USA indicating the distribution of properties at risk from flooding.

Risk Factor

Risk Factor quantifies a property’s comprehensive risk from environmental threats like flooding and wildfire. The tool also helps users understand how risks are shifting due to a changing environment.

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