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N e w s l e t t e r
January 2020
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EFC RELEASES NEW MOST CENTER COURSE
Above image courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Program
Landscaping for Resilience in a Changing Climate.
The Earth's climate is changing. Impacts - including higher temperatures, rising sea levels, and longer periods of extreme weather - are already being felt in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and are expected to worsen. While there are actions we can all take
, landscape professionals, in particular, have a unique opportunity to address the impacts of climate change. This course describes the difference between weather and climate and how human activities are causing changes at a rapid and unprecedented pace. Specific impacts to the Chesapeake Bay watershed are covered along with sustainable landscape practices that can be used to help mitigate climate change and promote resilience. Practices include using native plants and trees, designing for extreme precipitation, and installing resilient stormwater BMPs to curb flooding. The course ends with an overview landscaping strategies specific to the natural and built environments at water's edge.
Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professionals
can earn 2 CBLP CEUs!
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CHESAPEAKE TREE CANOPY SUMMIT FOCUSES ON PUBLIC HEALTH BENEFITS
On January 14-15, forestry practitioners and other stakeholders throughout the Bay region convened for the
Chesapeake Tree Canopy Summit at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Maryland. Planned by a broad partnership of organizations including the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Chesapeake Bay Program, the Summit aimed to build knowledge about new opportunities to advance tree canopy efforts and catalyze collaboration between new cross-sector partners such as planning, public health, and stormwater. It also sought to identify opportunities for improvements in forestry tools, guidance, and resources in the region.
A recurring theme of the event was the public health benefits of urban forests. The keynote presentation, by Dr. Kathleen Wolf of the University of Washington, covered the latest science linking trees to multiple health-related outcomes. Other presentations focused on the stormwater benefits of trees, how to address issues of equity related to urban forests, and ways to strengthen local codes and ordinances to be more forest friendly.
EFC's Assistant Director Medessa Burian co-presented a session on "Funding Community Forestry" with Senior Program Manager Jenny McGarvey from the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. Principles for building a strong foundation for successful funding were discussed as well as a range of cost-saving and revenue-generating strategies communities can use to study, plan, plant, and maintain urban forests. Content for this session built on the recent publication "
Financing Urban Tree Canopy Programs: A Guidebook for Municipalities in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed." Its themes are also the focus of a forthcoming EFC MOST Center course,
Funding Community Forestry.
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IMPACT MAGAZINE FEATURES EFC GUEST EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS
EFC's Dr. Marccus Hendricks served as Guest Editor for this month's IMPACT Magazine, a publication of the
American Water Resources Association. This issue highlights a diverse array of topics related to water infrastructure resilience, including equity, finance and investment, demand, maintenance, restoration, politics, public participation, public health, public works, and climate change. Several EFC staff members also contributed articles, including "Gray, Green and Brown for Blue: Historical Directions and Future Perspectives Toward a Hybrid Approach for Resilient Stormwater Management", "Leveraging the Capital Improvement Program to Build Resilience" and "Can 'One Water' Address Equity and Resilience Concerns? A More Collaborative and Holistic Approach to Water Resource Management", which can all be found
here.
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EFC PRESENTS AT FLOODPLAIN AND STORMWATER CONFERENCE
In early November, EFC'S Dr. Jenny Egan and Stephanie Dalke attended the annual conference of the Maryland Association of Floodplain and Stormwater Managers (MAFSM). This event brought together government, non-profit, private sector, and academic professionals who work on floodplain and stormwater issues in the state.
In the keynote session, Anna Sierra from Caroline County Emergency Services and Brian Soper with Dorchester County Planning and Zoning spoke about the benefits of multi-disciplinary coordination and planning for improved flood and disaster mitigation. They also highlighted some of Dorchester County's strategies for dealing with chronic inundation due to sea level rise and increased precipitation. In the absence of a proactive buyout program, the county is taking lower cost approaches to reducing the number of people and properties subject to sea level rise, such as evaluating the flood risk of tax sale properties and retaining those that have higher risk rather than allowing them to be sold. Jenny Egan presented about the forthcoming Community-enabled Lifecycle Analysis of Stormwater Infrastructure Costs (CLASIC) tool, which will help inform local decision making around stormwater and green infrastructure implementation scenarios.
The conference agenda can be found
here.
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EFC EXHIBITS AT RASCL CONFERENCE
The Resilient and Sustainable Communities League (RASCL) of Delaware held their
annual summit on November 15. The member organizations of RASCL are comprised of local and state leaders, academics, and nonprofit organizations committed to working together to increase mutual capacity to adapt, mitigate, and respond to environmental changes, including climate change. EFC sponsored and tabled at the event to provide information to RASCL members about the work it does with communities in the region. The summit's topic was "Surf and Turf: Implications for Future Management of Our Land and Waters". Presentations and participation by state and local officials, planners, and natural resource managers offered a "...comprehensive look at land use practices that integrate wetlands, green infrastructure, and other strategies to help coastal and inland communities manage our changing climate" in Delaware.
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FOLLOW EFC ON SOCIAL MEDIA
 You can follow EFC and some of our programs on social media: EFC is on Twitter @EFCUMD, Sustainable Maryland is on Facebook, and the Municipal Online Stormwater Center (MOST) is on Twitter @TheMOSTCenter
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