The Resilience Roundup highlights announcements, events, and funding opportunities along with links to the previous month's local, state, and national resilience news.
|
|
Resilient Connecticut Project Updates |
|
June Research Webinar Series
CIRCA hosted a nine-part Resilient Connecticut research webinar series in June. Focused on specific topics and condensed on time, each event included presentation and Q&A moderated by CIRCA's Assistant Director of Research,
Dr. Yaprak Onat. More information about each project can be found in the "Program Details" on the Research Webinar Website, including an abstract, fact sheet, and presentation slides. If you missed the live events, you can watch them on CIRCA's YouTube channel. UConn Today also covered many of the webinars with news coverage - click on the titles below to read more about the topics:
|
|
Bard College - Worldwide Teach-In for Climate & Justice
July 7
|
|
The National Academies Webinar
Climate Conversations: Climate Security
July 15, 3:00 – 4:00 pm
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is hosting this
July webinar about how climate change is impacting and exacerbating risks to security at home and abroad. Lisa Friedman (The New York Times) will moderate a conversation with Erin Sikorsky (The Center for Climate and Security) and Swathi Veeravalli (U.S. Africa Command) about how different parts of the security community are thinking about climate risks, what implications these risks hold for policy and planning, and where there are capacity gaps or aspects of climate security that need more research.
|
|
July 16, 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Join YCCCH for this special seminar by Dr. José Siri on his work in urban and planetary health, climate change, and systems thinking. Dr. Siri helps manage the Wellcome Trust’s portfolio of urban research and works to build strategic engagement to advance the field of planetary health. Previously, he was a research fellow at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health in Kuala Lumpur, where he led research, policy and capacity-building efforts in urban health.
|
|
NOAA Office for Coastal Management Webinar
Seven Best Practices for Risk Communication
July 21, 3:00 – 4:30 pm
Understanding risk is a key component for initiatives focused on helping communities prepare for and respond to weather and climate hazards. This interactive webinar introduces participants to seven best practices, numerous techniques, and examples for communicating about coastal hazards. Whether beginning a new effort or trying to keep people motivated to prepare for future hazards, applying risk communication principles leads to more effective results.
|
|
July 23, morning and afternoon sessions
The third annual EBC New England Regional Climate Change and Resiliency Summit will provide cutting-edge and actionable insights into ways in which climate change is driving climate resilience work across New England, including the prospects for federal funding to support adaptation and mitigation projects, the key social and economic forces that can be expected to drive accelerated resiliency efforts, and some examples of regional and business-scale initiatives that exemplify response to climate change through adaptation and mitigation. Both Morning and Afternoon sessions are available for registration.
|
|
NPR Podcast: How The Climate Crisis is Affecting Connecticut’s Future
After years of warning from scientists, the global climate crisis is impacting Americans across the country. This year, we’ve already seen unprecedented ice storms across Texas and one of the worst droughts in modern history in the west. But what kind of changes can we expect in Connecticut? Dr. Khalilah L. Brown-Dean from NPR’s Disrupted, featured CIRCA’s Executive Director Jim O’Donnell along with two other speakers who discussed ways the changing climate is affecting our state.
|
|
CT DEEP Coastal Property Owner's Guide
Are you interested in buying, selling, or doing work at a coastal property? Many owners and potential buyers are unaware of state environmental laws, the responsibility to permit structures, and the need to comply with FEMA floodplain standards. If you don’t have a permit from the CT Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) for shoreline structures, new construction, or substantial repairs, it is likely unauthorized and a violation. Even if someone else installed it, or you were misinformed that it is “grandfathered,” it is still your responsibility to find out if the structure or new repairs require a permit.
|
|
Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) Grants
The application period for the FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) DR-4580 is open until January 12, 2022. Applicants can find information and forms on the DEMHS website. If you have technical issues with the sub-application, please email the DEMHS Mitigation Unit at DEMHS.HMGP@ct.gov.
To receive technical assistance and feedback about a potential project, applicants can also fill out a Notice of Sub-Application Intent Form. Applications will be reviewed, ranked, and submitted on October 1, 2021 and January 12, 2022.
|
|
How to Prepare for Hurricane Season and Evacuations
The New York Times - June 4, 2021
Here are some tips for getting ready for coastal storms: make a plan, make digital copies of important documents, and prepare an emergency kit. Be ready for another season of above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic. That’s the warning from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is predicting anywhere between 13 and 20 named storms in 2021, including three to five major hurricanes. Experts caution that a storm does not need to be a major hurricane to cause damage and extreme flooding and winds can occur hundreds of miles inland, not just on the coastline.
|
|
EPA Climate Change Indicators in the United States
|
|
Level Up Audio Project Season 2 Now Available
As climate change worsens the hazards facing communities, the voices of resilience professionals helping local people and governments prepare are a critical part of the conversation. The Level Up Audio Project brings stories of community resilience and hazard mitigation to life through interviews with people directly involved in resilience solutions. Produced by FEMA Region 9 and brought to you through a partnership with the Georgetown Climate Center, the new season of Level Up features four 15-20 minute episodes packed with stories, case studies, and best practices to inspire widespread hazard mitigation action.
|
|
TCI-P Public Webinar Recording Available
On a June 10 webinar attended by more than 300 participants, leaders from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia shared updates on the development of the bipartisan Transportation & Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P). Responding to extensive input from stakeholders over the past two months, TCI-P jurisdictions in consultation with the other eight collaborating TCI states shared a package of updates and materials for feedback.
|
|
NOAA Funding and Financing Coastal Resilience Series
NOAA's Office for Coastal Management has been offering a course that builds foundational knowledge about funding and financing approaches used to support coastal resilience activities. Viewers will: 1) Distinguish between basic funding and financing approaches for implementing coastal resilience projects; 2) Learn about ideas for overcoming common challenges associated with financing resilience projects; and 3) Access resources to identify and support funding and financing approaches.
|
|
GCC Community-Informed Heat Relief Report
To help policymakers and communities address the public health threat of extreme heat, the Georgetown Climate Center (GCC) released the report Community-Informed Heat Relief: Policy Options for Addressing Urban Extreme Heat in High-Risk Communities to inform a new comprehensive heat plan currently being developed by the District of Columbia, and to serve as a resource for other cities impacted by urban extreme heat. When it is complete, DC’s plan will direct District government agencies on how best to aid frontline communities and populations most at-risk during extreme heat crises.
|
|
State and Regional News Clips |
|
Should We Stay or Should We Go? Shoreline Homes and
Rising Sea Levels in Connecticut
UConn Today - June 15, 2021
Experts predict sea level could rise as much as 20 inches by 2050, putting coastal communities in Connecticut in jeopardy. One possible solution is a retreat from the shoreline, in which coastal homes are removed to take them out of imminent danger. This solution comes with many complications, including reductions in tax revenue for towns and potentially diminished real estate values for surrounding properties. Charles Towe, UConn Associate Professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics presented his findings on the implications of shoreline retreat on tax revenue and property values in a CIRCA webinar.
|
|
A Simple Simulation to Help Coastal Towns Plan for Rising Sea Levels
UConn Today - June 21, 2021
Predicting how water moves through coastal structures, while also accounting for the complex variables that impact the movement, takes a lot of computational power and expertise. But that information is vital for municipal planning, especially when contending with sea level rise and increasingly strong coastal storms. Dr. Yan Jia, a research associate at UConn CIRCA, has made this process much easier and quicker, cutting the calculation time from hours to minutes and eliminating the need for supercomputers.
|
|
CIRCA Webinar Presents Changes to Land Surface Temperature, Land Use in New Haven, Fairfield Counties
UConn Today - June 23, 2021
Climate change is increasing the incidence of extreme heat everywhere. In places like Connecticut where residents are less acclimated to this kind of heat, it is an even more significant public health risk. Mariana Fragomeni, UConn Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture in UConn's College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources presented her research on a CIRCA webinar. She described how surface temperatures in Fairfield and New Haven counties have changed over the past 20 years and how different kinds of land cover affect heat.
|
|
Don’t Get Soaked: Flood Damage Could Lessen if Cities Build Smarter
UConn Today - June 24, 2021
Natural disasters regularly wreak havoc on regions across the globe, and rising sea levels, precipitation changes, and urbanization have only amplified the damage—including right here in Connecticut. To showcase the impact, UConn Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Assistant Research Professor Xinyi Shen and Ph.D. student Kang He illustrated the drastic changes in flood risk and severity in the New Haven area at their June 14 CIRCA research webinar entitled “Extreme Precipitation and Riverine Flood Risk Analysis.”
|
|
Expanding Climate Resilience with Forward-Thinking Policy Initiatives
UConn Today - June 25, 2021
|
|
For Future Flood Control, Cities Need Strategy
UConn Today - July 1, 2021
CIRCA's data analyst Caterina Massidda studied the area around New Haven’s Tweed Airport to see how 20 inches of sea level rise—which is likely to happen in Long Island Sound by 2050—would affect the damage done both by typical storms and by a 100 year flooding event. The results showed that while 20 inches of sea level rise would significantly increase the number of streets and buildings flooded, strategically placed flood barriers could protect critical infrastructure.
|
|
Just 2 Degrees Of Warming Could Trigger ‘Climate Domino Effects’
Forbes - June 3, 2021
The relationships between four massive Earth systems could be destabilized by even moderate climate change, leading to cascading effects of accelerated sea level rise and species loss, a new study has warned. Climate phenomena such as the melting of Antarctic ice sheets can lead to dangerous “domino effects” that lead to knock-on impacts on other global systems, such as the flow of water in the Atlantic Ocean and the drying of the Amazon rainforest, a team of researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) found.
|
|
Gov. DeSantis Signs Bill and Florida Allocates Money
Toward Fighting Climate Change
Wesh - June 4, 2021
The hurricane season has now started and while communities in Florida prepare for the next devastating storm, there is also money being set aside to help them get ready for future impacts caused by sea level rise, intensified storms and flooding. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1954 (Statewide Flooding and Sea Level Rise Resilience) into law in May. The bill received unanimous approval in both the Florida House and Senate as both Republicans and Democrats agreed to move it forward.
|
|
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Reaches Highest Levels in 63 Years
Press Herald - June 7, 2021
A drop in emissions during the pandemic appears to amount to no more than a blip, researchers say. That did little to slow the steady accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which reached the highest levels since accurate measurements began 63 years ago, scientists said Monday. “If we don’t tackle fossil fuel burning, the problem is not going to go away,” Ralph Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said in an interview, adding that the world ultimately will have to make emissions cuts that are “much larger and sustained” than anything that happened during the pandemic.
|
|
How Communities of Color are Hurt Most by Climate Change
Forbes - June 7, 2021
Climate change is affecting all of us. But, like many other challenges in society, it’s hurting communities of color the most. The racial wealth gap is the result of systemic racism eating away at financial opportunities for people of color. They’re paid less than their white counterparts, even when they have college degrees, which limits their opportunities to build their savings and invest. Fewer financial resources means facing climate change is even harder.
|
|
NJDEP Launches Online Toolkit to Help Communities Integrate Climate Resilience & Adaptation Into Local Land-Use Planning
EIN News - June 14, 2021
(21/P020) TRENTON – The New Jersey DEP has launched a new climate resilience toolkit that will help municipal and county governments take actions to protect their communities from adverse climate impacts. Acting Commissioner Shawn LaTourette announced the launch of the Toolkit by saying, "...The Resilient NJ: Local Planning for Climate Change Toolkit provides valuable resources for developing community-specific, science-based strategies and actions that will protect homes, businesses, critical infrastructure, and natural resources.”
|
|
May 2021: Sixth-Warmest May on Record, NOAA Reports
Yale Climate Connections - June 14, 2021
May 2021 was the sixth-warmest May since global record-keeping began in 1880, 0.81 degrees Celsius (1.46°F) above the 20th-century average, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, NCEI, reported June 14. NASA rated the month the seventh warmest May on record. The relative coolness of May, by recent standards, was partially the result of a La Niña event in the Eastern Pacific that had dissipated earlier in the year: Its cool waters helped depress global surface temperatures.
|
|
Study: Extreme Weather May not Lead to Increased
Support for Climate Action
Yale Climate Connections - June 16, 2021
For some Americans, the signs of global warming are everywhere. In 2020 alone, wildfires broke records across the West, hurricanes fueled by abnormally warm ocean temperatures battered the Southeast, and a Death Valley weather station recorded a temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit — possibly the hottest daily high ever reliably documented on Earth. Now, drought has taken hold in much of the West, teeing up what is expected to be an extremely active fire season.
|
|
FEMA’s Criswell Says Emergency Managers Must Address Climate Resilience, ‘Systemic Barriers’ to Equity
Homeland Security Today - June 17, 2021
Disaster preparedness and response needs to better account for inequities ranging from risk to assistance and “systemic barriers” that hamper emergency managers from building truly resilient communities, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. “We are at a pivotal point where we, as the emergency management community, have the opportunity to address two key priorities: climate change and equity,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans in a Wednesday address.
|
|
Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Omits Major Climate Change Measures
CNBC - June 24, 2021
White House negotiators and a group of senators struck a deal on a bipartisan infrastructure agreement on Thursday that slashes measures to combat climate change and help the U.S. transition to a clean energy economy. The narrow infrastructure deal leaves President Joe Biden's proposals on climate change to a separate bill that Democrats could attempt to pass through Congress using reconciliation, a process that doesn’t require Republican support.
|
|
Dispossessed, Again: Climate Change Hits Native Americans Hard
The New York Times - June 27, 2021
From Alaska to Florida, Native Americans are facing severe climate challenges, the newest threat in a history marked by centuries of distress and dislocation. While other communities struggle on a warming planet, Native tribes are experiencing an environmental peril exacerbated by policies — first imposed by white settlers and later the United States government — that forced them onto the country’s least desirable lands. And now, climate change is quickly making that marginal land uninhabitable.
|
|
The Resilience Roundup highlights CIRCA's presence in the news, provides links to recent local/state/national news articles related to resilience and adaptation, and announces upcoming events and seminars.
The Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation's (CIRCA) mission is to increase the resilience and sustainability of vulnerable communities along Connecticut's coast and inland waterways to the growing impacts of climate change and extreme weather on the natural, built, and human environment. The institute is located at the University of Connecticut's Avery Point campus and includes faculty from across the university. CIRCA is a partnership between UConn and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP).
|
|
State and Regional News Clips |
|
|
|
|
|
|
