United States

This reference guide is for city managers and other city staff who are creating a citywide climate adaptation monitoring and evaluation (M&E) program.The guide details essential components of an adaptation M&E framework and provides a structure for cities to plan and implement an adaptation M&E framework.

This should not be considered a sequential step-by- step guide; components need to be planned for and developed in parallel, as many are interdependent.

Rural Americans matter—a lot—to the fate of U.S. environmental policy. Not only do farmers, ranchers, and forest owners manage huge portions of American lands and watersheds, but rural voters also have an outsized impact on national policy. While rural Americans express support for natural resource conservation, they and their elected officials often voice less support for existing federal environmental policies and laws. Congressional action on a variety of environmental issues has been impeded by opposition from rural stakeholders.

Water is central to nearly everything we value in California. Healthy communities, economies, farms, ecosystems and cultural traditions depend on steady supplies of safe and affordable water.

This article examines shortcomings and possible improvements to standard post-disaster recovery processes through the lens of recovery in Princeville, North Carolina, the oldest black town in the United States. Princeville has faced existential challenges since it was settled in the Tar River floodplain in 1865, most recently in 2016 with flooding caused by Hurricane Matthew. The article describes the power of place attachment and the trauma caused by place-based disaster. It points out that significant rebuilding typically begins a full three years into a standard recovery timeline.

This is the debut of “Coloring Outside the Lines,” which will be a regular column authored by Dr. Nina S. Roberts in Parks Stewardship Forum. In “Coloring Outside the Lines,” Nina will be writing about various topics regarding parks, protected areas, cultural sites, and other forms of place-based conservation, with a focus on relevance, equity, access, inclusivity, and related topics.

Managers and scientists widely acknowledge climate change as one of the greatest threats to protected areas in the US and worldwide (Gross et al. 2016). The US National Park Service (NPS) began addressing climate change as early as the 1990s, and in 2010 NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis stated that “climate change is fundamentally the greatest threat to the integrity of our national parks that we have ever experienced” (NPS 2010).

The Town of Branford has approximately 28,225 residents living within 22.0 square miles of land. The town has over 20 miles of coastline along Long Island Sound. Recent events such as Tropical Storm Irene and Hurricane Sandy have underscored the risks associated with occupying coastal areas and highlighted the fact that property owners and municipalities bear a heavy financial burden to recover from these types of events.

In a demonstration of a municipal government working across the aisles locally and at the state level, the Town of Branford was the key to bringing about the state's new Municipal Climate Change and Coastal Resiliency Reserve Funds act signed into law by Gov. Ned Lamont in June and effective July 1, 2019. While the idea was born in Branford, the new law will benefit any town in the state with the ability to set up the fund.