Around the United States resilience work is happening at national, state, and local levels. My previous post identified primary organizations working at the national scale. Similarly, this post documents smaller scale, state and local level efforts.
Every coastal state in the US (including the great lakes) hosts a Sea Grant college program, and most are working in some way to improve the resilience of their local communities. As a boundary organization (or one that connects different communities of people) Sea Grant and its partners around the U.S. have been working on coastal resilience issues at the state level for years. Here are just a few well established Sea Grant program efforts:
Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium developed the Coastal Community Resilience Index. This tool is designed to act as a workbook for coastal communities who want to become more prepared for disasters.
Maine Sea Grant produced a series of videos about resilient coastal communities. The videos discuss how shorelines are changing, how communities might be affected, and what they can do about it. The Maine Sea Grant program also developed a widely used property owners guide for managing hazard risk.
North Carolina Sea Grant has been using a Vulnerability, Consequences, and Adaptation Scenarios Program (VCAPS) to engage communities around resilience issues. They also offer training programs for how to facilitate the use of VCAPS in other communities.
In addition to these tools and programs there are a few other state level programs that may be of interest:
The State of Connecticut offers the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA). The CIRCA was developed to “increase the resilience and sustainability of vulnerable communities along Connecticut’s coast and inland waterways to the growing impacts of climate change on the natural, built, and human environment.”
The State of California hosts the California Resiliency Alliance (CRA). “The CRA is a non-profit organization that works to build sustainable public-private partnerships to support community disaster response and recovery, and adaptation to the changing climate.”
The State of New Jersey published “Getting to Resilience” post Hurricane Sandy. The tool is a “questionnaire that is designed to spur ideas and collaboration among local decision makers.”
As always, feel free to leave comments below with suggestions for additional posts or comments regarding this one. Thanks!
