1-3 years

The City of Oakdale, Minnesota received funding in 2017 to conduct a vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning project. The Population Vulnerability Assessment and Climate Adaptation Framework report includes a review of past and projected climate change impacts, and the identification of community vulnerabilities and adaptation strategies. Climate changes experienced over the last 50 years will are detailed, as well as climate change projections through 2100 for the Midwest region as a whole, the State of Minnesota, and the City of Oakdale. 

The Southern California Climate Adaptation Project was initiated to improve understanding about the vulnerability of important southern California habitats to climate change and to develop adaptation strategies designed to reduce vulnerabilities and/or increase resilience of habitats. This project used a collaborative, stakeholder-driven process that involved soliciting input from land and resource managers, conservation practitioners, scientists, and others from federal and state agencies, universities, and nongovernmental organizations.

This year-long research project from ACT (the Adaptation to Climate Change Team) at Simon Fraser University’s Pacific Water Research Centre focused on the Still Creek watershed, which is shared between the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby. One of only two daylit creeks (i.e. creeks free of culverts and paved channels) remaining in Vancouver, Still Creek underwent significant environmental degradation as a result of urbanization.

In the fall of 2016, a partnership between The Nature Conservancy, the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments, and the Southeastern Connecticut Enterprise Region convened a group of over fifty stakeholders from Southeastern Connecticut to discuss the impacts of rising sea levels, extreme weather, and changing social and economic conditions on the resilience of the region and its communities.

An increasingly common post-disaster mitigation approach, home buyout programs are generally intended to reduce vulnerability to future disasters. However, to date, there has been virtually no quantitative evaluation of whether or not coastal buyout programs are successful in reducing vulnerability. Through a change in vulnerability analysis, this study quantifies the success of the Staten Island buyout program in reducing the nationwide vulnerability of people and property to coastal flood hazards.

We present a landscape-scale climate change adaptation plan that characterizes climate vulnerability and provides a foundation for adaptation action on the North Rim Ranches, a 3,360-km2 (830,000-acre) landscape of significant ecological and cultural importance on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The extent of the North Rim Ranches is defined by the livestock grazing permits held by the Grand Canyon Trust (the Trust) for allotments on public lands managed by the North Kaibab Ranger District of the U.S.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources recognizes that the presence of natural features such as marshes and coastal forests can reduce the impact of inundation and erosion on the state’s coastal communities. These habitats dampen waves, stabilize sediment, and absorb water, thereby providing residents with more time to select and implement other adaptation strategies. To better understand the resiliency benefits of existing natural features, the Department partnered with The Nature Conservancy to conduct a Coastal Resiliency Assessment.

Coastal areas face multiple risks related to climate change and variability. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report identified several highly urbanized, low-lying deltas of Asia and Africa as particularly vulnerable to climate-related impacts.

Clyde River, like many small communities located in Nunavut, Canada, is threatened by melting permafrost and thinning sea ice due to a warming climate. To help prepare for the adverse impacts of climate change, the Clyde River community worked with partners to develop a community adaptation plan. Projects were designed to better understand the threat sea level rise, melting permafrost and change in freshwater availability could have on the community. The lessons learned from their experience are being applied to five other communities in Nunavut to help develop adaptation plans.