Climate Knowledge Center
Overview: The Association of Climate Change Officers is a U.S. coalition of private and public sector community leaders that promotes sustainable building and adaptive policies on the municipal level.
How to Use This Resource: This nonprofit publishes extensive research on adaptation initiatives on the local level, which can be found on its Knowledge Center page. This is an excellent resource for journalists researching climate adaption in U.S. corporations.
States at Risk: America’s Preparedness Report Card
Overview: Climate Central is an independent organization of scientists and journalists researching and reporting climate change in the United States.
How to Use This Resource: This interactive report identifies the major climate threats facing the U.S – flooding, extreme heat, drought, and wildfire – and for each state provides a risk assessment score based on the extremity of weather and adaptive actions in place.
Climate Change News Coverage
Overview: The Guardian, one of the world’s leading newspapers, publishes frequently on climate change issues and maintains thousands of its articles in this news archive.
How to Use This Resource: Access the Guardian’s daily climate reporting, as well as special topic coverage, such as from the COP21 Paris climate talks, or on extreme weather and flooding.
Impacts & Adaptation – EPA State and Local Climate and Energy Program
Overview: This website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the federal agency that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment, archives all EPA adaptation resources available to U.S. city and state governments.
How to Use This Resource: The resource offers discussion of the benefits of adaptation and adaptation planning, links to specific plans from New York City, Chicago and Miami, among others, and a wide range of resources and tools.
New York-New Jersey Waterfront Resilience
Overview: The Waterfront Alliance is a coalition of nearly 900 New York and New Jersey organizations working to adapt the region’s waterways and 700 miles of shoreline for oncoming climate changes.
How to Use This Resource: The site provides access to the alliance’s public testimony and white papers, as well as to its Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines, or WEDG program, an incentive-based ratings system for resilient building and design. There’s also a report on the region’s recovery efforts since Hurricane Sandy.
Risk Reduction Action and Research
Overview: The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) coordinates disaster reduction activities of the United Nations. It was founded in 1999 and focuses primarily on building resilience against climate change.
How to Use This Document: This website contains extensive data and research collected by the UNISDR, as well as updates on its activities. Of note are the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a Climate Risk Early Warning Systems initiative launched at COP21 and a report on “The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters.”
Technical Resources on Climate Impacts
Overview: The Climate Impacts Group, part of the College of the Environment at the University of Washington, provides policymakers with scientific data and practical tools to address climate risks.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find datasets, publications and special reports on climate adaptation initiatives from this organization that focuses specifically in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and Canada.
ClimateWire
Overview: Environment & Energy Publishing provides coverage of environmental and energy policy and markets through five daily online publications that focus on Washington policy and politics, as well as national and global news.
How to Use This Resource: ClimateWire covers news on the politics and business of climate adaptation in the United States and abroad.
European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT)
Overview: Climate Adapt is a partnership between the European Commission and the European Environment Agency working to adapt Europe to climate change by providing a platform to publish and share information.
How to Use This Resource: This database contains European climate change projections in Europe, maps of regions vulnerable to climate change, national and transnational adaptation strategies, case studies and potential adaptation options.
Climate Change Global Food Security and the U.S. Food System
Overview: The United States Global Change Research Program is a coalition of 13 federal departments and agencies research the human-induced and natural processes of climate change.
How to Use This Resource: This 157-page report, part of a peer-reviewed scientific assessment incorporated into the U.S. National Climate Assessment, analyzes how climate change is impacting global food security across multiple sectors. The web site includes a six-minute explanatory video.
Climate Resilient Cities
Overview: Climate Resilient Cities is the overarching program on urban resilience of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), a worldwide network of over 1,000 cities, towns and metropolises with a mission to promote environmental sustainability in government.
How to Use This Resource: This initiative provides information and toolkits on municipal-level disaster risk reduction, food security, policy making and financing. Links on the web site include an adaptation database and planning tool, a white paper on financing resilience and various guidebooks. The site also includes a link to the the Durban Adaptation Charter, which has been signed by leaders from over 100 cities.
COP21 Paris Agreement
Overview: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and has near universal membership. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
How to Use This Resource: This document (in PDF form) is the final draft of the Paris Summit agreement, officially adopted on December 21, 2015, of the 21st Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC.
The Business Case for Responsible Corporate Adaptation
Overview: Caring for Climate is a joint initiative of the United Nations Global Compact, the United Nations Environmental Programme and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, working to mobilize business leaders to implement climate change adaptation policies.
How to Use This Resource: This report provides recommendations on climate adaptation from the United Nations to businesses with the aim of fighting poverty and environmental degradation worldwide. It includes chapters on the business benefits of adapting responsibly and on overcoming barriers to corporate adaptation, as well as 17 case studies of business adaptation around the world.
Climate Change Research and Impacts
Overview: The International Food Policy Research Institute, a research center of the CGIAR Consortium, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development, works with small-scale farmers across the globe to find ways to sustainably adapt to and build resilience toward a changing climate.
How to Use This Resource: This archive of publications contains all research and reports on IFPRI agricultural adaption initiatives.
A New Climate for Peace: Taking Action on Climate and Fragility Risks
Overview: The Group of 7 leading nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States — commissioned this report to identify the largest climate-fragility risks that pose serious threats to the stability of states and societies in the decades ahead.
How to Use This Resource: The report identifies seven “compound climate-fragility risks,” such as extreme weather and sea-level rise, that pose serious threats to the stability of states and societies. Based on an assessment of existing policies on climate change adaptation, development cooperation and humanitarian aid, and peacebuilding, the report recommends actions to reduce climate fragility and increase resilience. The report also includes nine country case studies, while the web site includes a fact book, risk briefs, suggested reading and an events list.
National Adaptation Plans
Overview: A national adaptation plan process, part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, enables parties to formulate and implement the plans as a way to identify adaptation needs, and to develop and implement strategies and program to address them.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a complete database of UNFCCC plans to adapt Least Developed Countries to a changing climate. This resource page also includes links to technical guidelines and publications.
Vulnerability and Adaptation Projects and Initiatives
Overview: The World Resources Institute is a global research organization that works with more than 50 countries, including Brazil, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, and the United States. Its experts and staff work with policymakers to sustain natural resources and create economic opportunity.
How to Use This Resource: This site archives information on all World Resources Institute adaptation projects in vulnerable regions across the globe. Projects include adaptation finance, promoting effective adaptation in India, and adaptation decisionmaking. Individual project pages include links to publications and related material, such as maps and data.
The Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage
Overview: The Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is a protocol to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
How to Use This Resource: This page leads to various resources related to loss and damage, including an overview of milestones, various decision documents and meeting schedules, as well as access to a database of examples of existing loss and damage measures.
#COP21 Images
Overview: The photo-sharing social media site Instagram uses hashtags to create on-the-fly collections of images, such as with #COP21 for the Paris climate talks.
How to Use This Resource: Scan the page to review and share from a collection of tens of thousands of images from the Paris summit. Use the search function to check for other Paris or climate-related hashtags.
IISD Reporting Services Coverage of COP21
Overview: The International Institute for Sustainable Development, or IISD, is a Canadian non-profit focused on a range of sustainability issues, including resilience.
How to Use This Resource: IISD’s Reporting Services features extensive documentation from the Paris climate summit and previous UN climate negotiations, including coverage of main conferences and side events. Also featured are briefing videos on Paris. The main IISD site has a COP21 page with many backgrounders as well.
Climate Change and Human Mobility
Overview: The Nansen Initiative is an inter-government effort, primarily funded by Norway and Switzerland, to build consensus around protecting people displaced across borders due to natural disasters, including those linked to climate change.
How to Use This Resource: The Nansen Initiative web site has links to specific regional initiatives in Asia, Africa, the Pacific and Latin America, an archive of dozens of backgrounders and statements, plus policy reviews and research. The initiative also held an event at the Paris climate negotiations to bring together players around climate change and human mobility issues.
Game-changers in the Paris Climate Deal
Overview: Oxfam is an international confederation of organizations working on poverty alleviation and helping with disaster relief in more than 90 countries.
How to Use This Resource: As part of a campaign around the Paris COP21 climate summit, Oxfam has prepared this white paper on what it sees as important outcomes from the negotiations, including adequate financing for adaptation in poorer countries.
The Transformative Actions Program
Overview: The Transformative Actions Program (TAP) is an effort by cooperative networks of local and subnational governments to implement projects at the local and regional level. It was launched and is managed by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability.
How to Use This Resource: Reporters can access a project pipeline of as many as 100 TAP projects and action plans. And at the COP21 climate change negotiations in Paris, TAP organized a Cities & Regions Pavilion that featured more than 120 local and regional projects, as well as a Climate Summit for Local Leaders.
U.N. Climate Change Newsroom
Overview: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and has near universal membership. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
How to Use This Resource: At the Paris 2015 Climate Change Conference, convention members are attempting to reach a global agreement on climate action. This website posted regular updates from the Paris conference, including the latest information on negotiations, documents, and live feeds, as well as resources for those journalists covering the conference. You can also find a list of on-demand webcasts and a hashtag tracker.
Global Climate Adaptation Partnership
Overview: The Global Climate Adaptation Partnership is a leading climate change adaptation consultancy, training and knowledge management companies, based in England.
How to Use This Resource: The site provides links to a compendium of adaptation and disaster risk reduction practices, as well as information about a training program, the Oxford Adaptation Academy,
100 Resilient Cities
Overview: The global nonprofit Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative invests in climate resilience worldwide by providing select cities with financial and logistical guidance, and access to solutions, service providers and partners to help develop and implement resilience strategies.
How to Use This Resource: The website provides detailed reports on member cities via a database that allows users to select cities based on region and specific challenges. The site also maintains an active blog.
Climate Change Information for Adaptation: Climate Trends and Projected Values for Canada from 2010 to 2050
Overview: The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction is a disaster prevention research nonprofit, established by Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry and affiliated with the University of Western Ontario.
How to Use This Resource: This report breaks summarizes climate trends to date and offers future weather projections in 18 major Canadian regions.
Adaptation Platform
Overview: Natural Resources Canada is the branch of the Canadian government responsible protecting the country’s natural resources, with a focus on agricultural and clean energy policy.
How to Use This Resource: The Adaptation Platform unites Canadian government and industry decision makers to collaborate on national adaptation priorities.
Canada’s Ongoing Commitment to Climate Change Adaptation
Overview: Environment Canada is the branch of the Canadian government responsible for conducting scientific research on Canada’s environment and for draft legislation to maintain it.
How to Use This Resource: This policy brief reports on how federal adaptation funds are being allocated in Canada.
Hoboken Resiliency & Readiness Plan
Overview: The City of Hoboken Mayor’s Office is one the leading municipal governments in the fight for climate adaptation. Mayor Dawn Zimmer has invested millions of dollars into Hoboken flood resiliency and is a member of President Obama’s Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Local Government Advisory Committee.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a comprehensive report on the climate risks facing Hoboken, N.J., primarily flooding and the need for better storm surge protection infrastructure.
The New Orleans Index at Ten: Measuring Greater New Orleans’ Progress toward Prosperity
Overview: The Data Center provides independent data analysis on disaster recovery and regional economic analysis in Southeast Louisiana.
How to Use This Resource: New Orlean’s recovery after Hurricane Katrina is a case study in the successes and failures of resilience investment. This report examines how the city used climate change adaptation to bolster the city’s economy yet why certain communities are still struggling to recover.
Know Your Zone
Overview: New York City’s Office of Emergency Management is a coordinating agency that prepares for emergencies, coordinates emergency response, and shares emergency information.
How to Use This Resource: This site contains practical information about New York City’s hurricane response policies and includes maps of hurricane evacuation zones, potential hurricane hazards, and preparation techniques.
Flood Insurance
Overview: The Center for NYC Neighborhoods is a nonprofit dedicated to preventing foreclosure, rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy, and promoting affordable homeownership.
How to Use This Resource: This toolkit for New York City residents provides up-to-date information on flood insurance and risk assessment in the five boroughs. It includes an interactive map and a full report on flood insurance.
Two Years after Superstorm Sandy: Exploring Resilience in Twelve Neighborhoods
Overview: The Associated Press-National Opinion Research Center for Public Affairs Research is a joint collaboration between the University of Chicago and the AP to creative unbiased journalism that is rigorously researched.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a report on Hurricane Sandy recovery that focuses on the critical role social factors play in community resilience.
Retrofitting Buildings for Flood Risk
Overview: The New York City Department of City Planning is the department responsible for the oversight of the city’s physical and socioeconomic planning.
How to Use This Resource: This report provides a comprehensive analysis of retrofit options available for buildings in the New York City floodplain.
New York State Hurricane Sandy Response Programs
Overview: The Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery was formed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to centralize recovery and rebuilding efforts in areas impacted by Hurricane Sandy.
How to Use This Resource: This site details the New York State programs dedicated to housing recovery, small business, and community reconstruction.
Bloomberg’s Hidden Legacy: Climate Change and the Future of New York City
Overview: Inside Climate News is a Pulitzer prize-winning, nonprofit news organization that covers clean energy, carbon energy, nuclear energy and environmental science.
How to Use This Resource: Mayor Bloomberg’s initiatives to fortify New York City after Hurricane Sandy have since become a model for urban adaptation across the globe. This book details those initiatives.
Building Resilience for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Agriculture Sector
Overview: The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are intergovernmental agencies focused on sustainable agricultural development worldwide.
How to Use This Resource: This report includes more than two dozen research papers on climate resilience and adaptation in agriculture sectors worldwide.
Superstorm Sandy News, Articles, and Research
Overview: City Limits is a nonprofit news source for investigative journalism on the inner workings of New York City.
How to Use This Resource: Hurricane Sandy plays a key role in the continuing conversation on climate adaptation. This archive of the storm’s news coverage is a valuable resource for journalists to track its impact on the local level in New York City.
The Rotterdam Approach
Overview: The Rotterdam Climate Initiative offers a platform for companies, academies, citizens, and government bodies to work together on fortified water supply infrastructure.
How to Use This Resource: This website archives the numerous reports from the city of Rotterdam on how it plans to cut its CO2 emissions and promote sustainable business in the Netherlands.
Can Understanding Rain Enable Change?
Overview: Where the Rain Falls research explores the interrelationships among rainfall, food and livelihood security, and human mobility in a diverse set of research sites in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find research on how this advocacy group improves food and water security through community-based adaptation strategies in developing nations across the globe.
Special Initiatives
Overview: Eye on Earth is a coalition of global leaders, innovators and decision-makers working to unite policymakers, converge consensus, and foster further global collaboration toward climate adaptation.
How to Use This Resource: This database provides policymakers with an information-sharing platform to share their knowledge of fighting climate change. Sorted by topic, the site features extensive research on disaster response, water security, and emission reduction, among others.
Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation
Overview: Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Life Science conducts research on biotechnology, biomedical engineering, renewable energies and process engineering, nutrition and health, hazard control and rescue engineering and industrial engineering.
How to Use This Resource: This book examines on the micro and macro levels the socioeconomic impacts of climate change and the process of adaptation.
Fostering Community Disaster Resilience: A Fact Sheet for Journalists and News Organizations
Overview: The Disaster and Community Crisis Center at the University of Missouri focuses on enhancing mental and behavioral health preparedness, recovery, and resilience in children, families, and communities affected by disaster.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a comprehensive guid on the best practices for reporting in a disaster; how to prepare, report, and do no harm.
Recent OECD work on Adaptation to Climate Change
Overview: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is a consortium of 34 nations in Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Asia that promote international economic development.
How to Use This Resource: This report details what actions the OECD has taken to assist developing countries prepare for climate change, how best to invest in future adaptation, and where funds are needed most.
Green Infrastructure Toolkit
Overview: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a federal agency within the United States Department of Commerce dedicated to the preservation of oceans and the atmosphere.
How to Use This Resource: This toolkit provides local-level data about the coastal risks of climate change and provide an extensive menu of techniques to mitigate those risks.
Adaptation Case Studies Database
Overview: The United Kingdom Climate Impacts Programme is a research group run out of the School of Geography And The Environment at Oxford University. It assists governments to adapt to climate change through practice-based research.
How to Use This Resource: UKCIP regularly publishes their case studies on innovative climate adaptation policy, which is searchable by sector and by risk.
States of Change: Stories of Climate Change from Close to Home
Overview: Climate Central is an independent organization of scientists and journalists researching and reporting climate change in the United States.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists can use an interactive map to navigate a multimedia collection of stories, research, and data about climate change on a local level, searchable by region, topic or media within the United States.
Adaptation Professionals Database
Overview: The American Society of Adaptation Professionals helps build climate resilience for communities across the country by providing a platform for climate adaptation leaders to share knowledge, plans, and resources.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists can use this database to find climate adaption experts and professionals by region within the United States.
Digital Coast: Office for Coastal Management
Overview: The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a federal agency dedicated to the preservation of oceans and the atmosphere.
How to Use This Resource: This repository contains U.S. topographic data that users can search by year, area, data provider, elevation product, projection, datum, and format.
National Disaster Resilience Competition
Overview: The Department of Housing and Urban Development is the cabinet-level agency responsible for the development of quality and affordable housing in the United States.
How to Use This Resource: Forty states and communities are competing in the final phase of the challenge to develop disaster resilience strategies and projects. This site provides a comprehensive guide to what action those governments are taking.
Data Snapshots: Reusable Climate Maps
Overview: The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a federal agency dedicated to the preservation of oceans and the atmosphere.
How to Use This Resource: This catalog of maps features filtering options, such as droughts, temperature and severe weather, to help users pinpoint data by location.
National Stormwater Calculator
Overview: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the federal organization that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment.
How to Use This Resource: This desktop application estimates the annual amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff from a specific site anywhere in the United States.
Mitigation and Adaptation Policies
Overview: The Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet is a NASA-sponsored project that archives timely news and data on Earth’s changing climate.
How to Use This Resource: This database makes NASA-sponsered data available to the general public with a special focus on adaption and mitigation.
Health and Human Services Climate Adaptation Plan
Overview: The United States Department of Health and Human Services is a cabinet-level agency responsible for protecting human health.
How to Use This Resource: This report assesses the full impact that climate change will have on American health. It outlines plans to update its facilities and practices to better serve vulnerable communities within the United States.
Climate Change Resource Center
Overview: The U.S. Forest Service is the agency within the Department of Agriculture responsible for the preservation and upkeep of national forests and park
How to Use This Resource: This archive contains detailed reports on how the changing climate is impacting national forests, and the best practices for protecting them.
Green Climate Fund
Overview: The Green Climate Fund is a global coalition of governments working together under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) to invest in climate-resilient development and help developing countries adapt to a changing climate.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find information on how the fund helps governments channel adaptation investments to developing countries, including a pledge tracker, descriptions of projects being funded, documentation and an online news room. More background about the Green Climate Fund can be found at the UNFCC web site.
Climate Adaptation: Seizing the Challenge
Overview: The World Economic Forum is an independent, international organization that collaborates with decision makers in the political and business spheres to shape global policies.
How to Use This Resource: Sub-Saharan African nations are among the most vulnerable to climate change and the least ready to adapt, according to this World Economic Forum report. Journalists will find data on the climate change and economic factors that weakens these nations.
Impacts and Adaptations Research Hub
Overview: Climate Access is a network for those engaging the public in the transformation to low-carbon, resilient communities.
How To Use This Research: This archive holds extensive reports on adaptation efforts across the globe and is searchable by region and by climate change impacts.
Adaptation Strategies and Adaptation Mitigation Nexus
Overview: The Asian-Pacific Adaptation Project is an organization within the United Nations Environmental Programme, working to build climate change resilience in Asian nations.
How to Use This Resource: This archive holds reports, news updates and data on adaptation strategies in the Asian-Pacific region.
Finance Research and Data
Overview: The Inter-American Development Bank provides financial and technical support for countries in South and Latin America to reduce poverty and inequality in a sustainable, climate-friendly way.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find reports and data on adaptation finance in Latin and South America.
Climate-Resilient Development: A Framework for Understanding and Addressing Climate Change
Overview: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers investigates, develops and maintains the nation environmental resources.
How to Use This Resource: This toolkit offers a five-stage program for policymakers and developers to help them assess climate risks and prioritize climate-resilient action.
Climate Policy Resources
Overview: The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy is a private research organization that focuses on the use, regulation, and taxation of land, including implications related to climate change.
How to Use This Resource: Various climate policy resources are published by the Institute. Among them is the Planet of Cities book by Shlomo Angel reports on the developing science of cities and preparing them for expansion and climate change.
North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study Report
Overview: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers investigates, develops and maintains the nation environmental resources.
How to Use This Resource: This report and interactive map details the results of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study of coastal storm and flood risk to vulnerable populations, property, ecosystems, and infrastructure affected by Hurricane Sandy in the North Atlantic region.
Climate Confidential
Overview: Climate Confidential is an independent news source covering environment and technology. Funded by readers, its stories have appeared in The Atlantic and Scientific American.
How to Use This Resource: Find narrative-driven stories about technological innovation in the fight against climate change, drought and public health concerns.
Adaptation Resources in New Jersey
Overview: NJADAPT is an online tool to help government officials and the general public understand how a changing climate is affecting New Jersey. It is run through Rutgers University.
How to Use This Resource: This website features an adaptation toolkit, a directory of New Jersey-based adaptation resources, and university research on climate change impacts.
Climate Preparedness Publications
Overview: The Resource Innovation Group is a nonprofit affiliated with the Sustainability Institute at Willamette University. It addresses the human causes and impacts of climate change.
How to Use This Resource: The Resource Innovation Group in Oregon has done substantial research at the nexus of climate change and public health, including developing human resilience. The site includes an archive of that work, as well as information about ongoing workshops in building resilience.
Connecting People to Build Inclusive Urban Climate Change Resilience
Overview: The Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network works to contribute knowledge, create resources, and promote agendas to build inclusive urban climate change resilience.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find an archive of reports, research and data on the progress of climate change adaptation in developing Asian nations.
Weather and Climate Toolkit
Overview: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a federal agency dedicated to the preservation of oceans and the atmosphere.
How to Use This Resource:The toolkit allows the visualization and data export of weather and climate data, including radar, satellite and model data. It also provides tools for background maps, animations and basic filtering.
Rising Waters, Rising Threat: How Climate Change Endangers America’s Neglected Wastewater Infrastructure
Overview: The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan policy institute that is dedicated to improving the lives of Americans.
How to Use This Resource: As extreme weather strains sewer systems, wastewater infrastructure is becoming a critical public and environmental health concern. This report investigates the state of the sewage infrastructure and recommends policy to adapt it.
Building a Stronger Coast
Overview: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services is the agency dedicated to protecting oceanic ecosystems.
How to Use This Resource: This website features state fact sheets, an infographic on coastal resilience, restoration and repair videos, and an interactive story map of Hurricane Sandy recovery projects, with detailed profiles of each and a database of media resources that is searchable by state.
Beach Nourishment: How Beach Nourishment Works
Overview: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers investigates, develops and maintains the nation environmental resources.
How to Use This Resource: This report explains how climate change and human activity erode the coastline and what might be done to restore it and reduce flood risk.
The Big One: The East Coast’s USD 100 Billion Hurricane Event 
Overview: Swiss Reinsurance Company is a reinsurance company based in Zurich.
How to Use This Resource: In 1821, a powerful hurricane decimated the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast United States. If it were to strike today, it would potentially cost more than $100 billion in property losses. This report examines what data exists from that storm to predict the impact of future mega-storms.
Introduction to Storm Surge
Overview: The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a federal agency dedicated to the preservation of oceans and the atmosphere.
How to Use This Resource: Storm surge is an abnormal rise of water generated by a storm. And as climate change intensifies the power of tropical storms, storm surge will become one of the greatest challenges facing coastal cities. This fact sheet explains the science behind the surge.
Hurricane Katrina News Updates
Overview: Nola.com is a breaking news website that covers New Orleans in partnership with the Times-Picayune.
How to Use This Resource: Nola.com offers extensive news coverage of New Orleans’ rehabilitation after it was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Population Dynamics, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development in Africa
Overview: The African Institute for Development Policy is an an African-led nonprofit, established to help bridge the gaps between research, policy and practice in the areas of population change, public health, and the environment in Africa.
How to Use This Resource: Sub-Saharan African nations need more funds to combat climate change, but weak political systems make it difficult to channel those funds where they are needed. This report analyzed the data and found that improving health, schooling, and economic opportunities would greatly increase the continent’s capacity to adapt.
Protecting Our Capital: How Climate Adaptation in Cities Creates a Resilient Place for Business
Overview: C40 is a network of international cities that share information and collaborate on climate change action.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find data from more than 200 cities on their adaptation initiatives on the micro and macro level.
Climate Change News Updates
Overview: The Ecologist publishes news on climate change and its impacts on agriculture, health, and the energy sector.
How to Use This Resource: The climate change coverage from The Ecologist combines in-depth reporting with fascinating stories of adaptation and survival.
Climate Desk
Overview: The Climate Desk is a journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impacts of a changing climate, including adaptation. The partners are The Atlantic, CityLab, Grist, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Medium, Mother Jones, The New Republic, Newsweek, Slate, and Wired.
How to Use This Resource: The site combines the latest climate-related stories from Climate Desk’s partners, as well as features from its own staff.
Living on Earth
Overview: Living on Earth with Steve Curwood is a weekly environmental news and information program distributed by the Minneapolis-based Public Radio International.
How to Use This Resource: Living on Earth provides a wide range of environmental news, and frequently focuses on climate change (the site’s search function yields many reports). Special climate change features look at the changing language of climate, climate change and New York’s future, and Louisiana storm protection.
Yale Climate Connections
Overview: The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication conducts research on public climate knowledge and provides communicators with tools to engage their audiences.
How to Use This Resource: Yale Climate Connections is a multimedia service that broadcasts daily radio and print stories about climate change.
Progress Report: Targets and Initiatives 2
Overview: Greenworks Philadelphia is the City’s first comprehensive sustainability plan. Its drafting incorporated existing work within the Philadelphia government and external partners.
How to Use This Resource: This report details the Philadelphia government’s policies to combat climate change and make the city more resilient.
Local Government Climate Adaptation Training
Overview: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the federal agency that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment.
How to Use This Resource: This training toolkit was designed to brief local government lawmakers on the local level on climate change science, impacts, and policy solutions available to them.
Climate Change Policy & Practice
Overview: Climate Change Policy and Practice is a database of United Nations and Intergovernmental activities that publishes news updates daily.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find the most recent updates on United Nations climate change action and news.
Climate Change and Transportation Research and Activities
Overview: The Transportation Research Board is run through the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. It conducts research at the nexus of climate change and transportation.
How to Use This Resource: This website serves as a gateway to Transportation Research Board activites and products that address transportation infrastructure and the effort to reduce transportation-related emissions of carbon dioxide.
Building Climate Resilient Transportation
Overview: The Federal Highway Administration is run through the U.S. Department of Transportation and is responsible for the upkeep of our roads and highways.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a detailed analysis of climate changes’ impact on the U.S. transportation system and what efforts are in place to combat it on the federal and state level.
Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise in Florida
Overview: The Florida Oceans and Coastal Council is a research organization sponsored by the federal government to develop priorities for ocean and coastal research statewide.
How to Use This Resource: This report on the effects of climate change on Florida’s ocean and coastal resources found the state extremely unprepared, because none of its infrastructure was built to accommodate sea level rise. The Florida Oceans and Coastal Council calls for immediate action in this comprehensive guide.
Climate, Mind and Behavior Symposium
Overview: The Garrison Institute is a nonprofit organization that explores the intersection of contemplation and action in the world.
How to Use This Resource: This symposium and resultant report examine the integration of climate change research findings about what drives human thinking on climate solutions.
Africa’s Adaptation Gap: A Technical Report
Overview: The United Nations Environment Programme represents the environment within the United Nations system.
How to Use This Resource: Africa’s Adaptation Gap Report is a stark analysis of where Africa stands in relation to its adaptation goals. The continent serves as a cautionary indicator of what may happen should the emissions gap remain.
The Climate Center Research on Agriculture
Overview: The University of Michigan Graham Sustainability Institute researches solutions for the long-term social, economic, and environment sustainability of the Great Lakes region in the face of climate change.
How to Use This Resource: The Climate Center delivers reports and datasets on the impacts climate change will have on American agriculture and the adaptation strategies underway.
Resilience to Extreme Weather
Overview: The Royal Society is a Fellowship of the world’s top scientists. It is headquartered in London with branches across the globe.
How to Use This Resource: This document is an examination of people’s resilience to extreme weather such as floods, droughts and heat waves. It looks at possible improvements that might save lives by comparing the systems already in place.
Paris Climate Change Conference Information Hub
Overview: The Paris 2015 Climate Change Conference was the 21st meeting of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, whose aim is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
How to Use This Resource: The extensive conference information hub is a go-to site for reporters covering the Nov. 30-Dec. 11, 2015 summit, providing agendas, reports, schedules, research pertaining, and more. There’s also a web site on Understanding the UNFCC that includes a detailed discussion of adaptation initiatives.
The Plumbing of Adaptation Finance: Accountability, Transparency, and Accessibility at the Local Level
Overview: The World Resources Institute is a global research organization that focuses on the critical elements of achieving sustainability worldwide.
How to Use This Resource: This report analyzes adaptation financing in Nepal, the Philippines, Uganda, and Zambia to examine how much finance is available within developing countries and whether the needs of the most vulnerable are being met.
Hurricane Sandy Rebuild By Design Competition
Overview: In response to Hurricane Sandy, U.S. HUD Secretary Donovan launched Rebuild by Design, a design competition model to develop innovative, actionable solutions for a more resilient region in the Northeast.
How to Use This Resource: Each of the projects profiled here found new ways to use design as a means to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. This work is at the vanguard of urban resiliency action.
Natural Disasters: Saving Lives Today, Building Resilience for Tomorrow
Overview: The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is an international research organization based in London that campaigns for sustainable policies worldwide.
How to Use This Resource: The rapid increase of people living in cities and is worsening the world’s susceptibility to natural disasters. This report details the ramifications of that susceptibility and makes economic and policy recommendations to improve urban resiliency.
Seizing the Global Opportunity
Overview: The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate is an independent think tank, commissioned by Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Norway, South Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom, to address the financial concerns caused by climate change.
How to Use This Resource: This report explores initiatives that would result in both stronger economic growth and a better climates in developing countries.
United States Federal Adaptation Resources
Overview: The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions is an independent nonprofit advocating for policy action to address climate change. It is the successor to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a database of adaptation resources such as reports, bill proposals, and datasets for policymakers on the federal, state and municipal level.
Practicing Architecture: Resilience by Design
Overview: The American Institute of Architects is the leading professional membership association for licensed architects, emerging professionals, and allied partners in the United States. It serves as a voice for the architecture profession and promotes service across the nation.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a comprehensive database of reports, guidelines, and toolkits on the future and best practices of resilient and sustainable architecture.
Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap
Overview: The U.S. Department of Defense serves as the principal defense policy advisor to the president and works under his direction. It embodies the U.S. military and a civilian force of thousands.
How to Use This Resource: Extreme weather will affect both the Department of Defense’s ability to defend the United States and increase the immediate risks it faces. This report outlines what those “threat multipliers” are and what the Department of Defense can do to address them.
Transportation, Waste, Water and Energy Resources in Boston
Overview: Greenovate Boston is a citywide initiative to engage the community in climate adaptation and sustainability.
How to Use This Resource: This database provides up-to-date information on sustainable and climate-friendly resources and organizations in Boston. The site also provides links to climate adaptation policy, reports and news in the Boston area.
Adapting to Climate Change in Coastal Parks
Overview: The National Park Service is a branch of the United States Department of the Interior and is responsible for the upkeep and protection of national parks.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a comprehensive report on how rising sea levels threaten national parks and what action is underway to address this threat.
Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast
Overview: The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority was established after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, in order to unify the state entities involved with protecting the coastline. For the first time in state history, Louisiana is uniting infrastructural and environmental agencies to produce a more climate-resilient community.
How to Use This Resource: Louisiana is one of the most vulnerable states, as well as one of the most innovative. This master plan details projects that provided relief to areas hit by Hurricane Katrina and lays groundwork for large-scale efforts to fortify the coastline in time for the next extreme storm.
Rising Seas
Overview: National Geographic Magazine is the official magazine of the National Geographic Society in Washington D.C. It covers issues pertaining to geography, history and world culture.
How to Use This Resource: In this multimedia project by National Geographic, reporter Tim Folger examines the process of deciding what is worth protecting on our nation’s coastline and what must be abandoned. His reporting is complemented by several valuable datasets on rising sea levels.
Climate Registry for the Assessment of Vulnerability
Overview: The U.S. Geographical Survey is a science organization that provides the government with information on America’s ecosystems, natural hazards and resources, and the impacts of climate change.
How to Use This Resource: Users can search this database – administered by the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and the advisory group EcoAdapt – for assessments by specific geographic regions, relevant agency, species, ecosystem and other factors.
Climate Adaptation Case Studies Map
Overview: The Climate Adaptation Knowledge Exchange is a shared information database by EcoAdapt and Island Press. It focuses on managing natural and built systems in the face of rapid climate change.
How to Use This Resource: The Case Studies Database map profiles on-the-ground adaptation investments across the globe and provides links to complete project information.
Flood Resilience: A Basic Guide for Water and Wastewater Utilities
Overview: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the federal organization that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment.
How to Use This Resource: This database of information on the U.S.’s water utilities infrastructure provides a basic overview of its current state, identifies vulnerable regions, and reports on projects currently underway to fortify it.
Water Utility Response On The Go
Overview: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the federal agency that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment.
How to Use This Resource: This toolkit for water utilities makes EPA resources easily accessible in the midst of an extreme weather event. It is mobile-friendly and includes weather tracking tools, planning information, and a damage reporting form.
Coastal Storm Surge Scenarios for Water Utilities
Overview: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the federal agency that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment.
How to Use This Resource: This map illustrates worst-case coastal storm scenarios with datasets from the National Hurricane Center, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Environmental and Climate Justice Program
Overview: The Environmental and Climate Justice Program is the branch of the NAACP advocating for climate change action in African-American communities.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find information the specific impact climate change has on African-American communities in the United States. The database includes policy reports, toolkits, and blog articles.
Businesses Acting on Rising Seas
Overview: The American Sustainable Business Council represents more than 165,000 businesses nationwide and advocates for sustainability in the economic sector.
How to Use This Resource: Businesses suffer significant losses because of climate change, which inflates healthcare, energy and transportation costs. The organization has initiatives in Massachusetts and South Carolina to unite business owners around adaptation to rising seas.
Cambridge Climate Change Planning
Overview: The Community Development Department is the planning agency for the City of Cambridge in Massachusetts. Its climate adaptation mission is to assess the extent of Cambridge’s vulnerability and draft comprehensive policy to strengthen the city’s resiliency.
How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find the complete Cambridge plan to adapt to and prepare for climate change.
Resilience and Adaptation in New England
Overview: The Northeast Regional Ocean Council is a state and federal partnership that assists the region’s states, federal agencies and local organizations to address oceanic issues.
How to Use This Resource: This presentation from the EPA Region 1 Climate Mapping Effort in May, 2015 details the efforts of the Northeast Regional Ocean Council to adapt the New England coastline to climate change.
Surging Seas: Sea Level Rise Analysis
Overview: Climate Central is an independent organization of scientists and journalists researching and reporting climate change primarily in the United States.
How to Use This Resource: This set of interactive tools and maps provides accurate sea level rise and coastal flood hazard data down to the neighborhood scale in the United States, as well as globally.
Regional and Country Profiles
Overview: Eldis is an information service publishes diverse research on development issues worldwide.
How to Use This Resource: This database is an excellent resource for current reports on financing climate change adaptation in the developing world.
Which Coastal Cities Are at Highest Risk of Damaging Floods?
Overview: The World Bank is an intergovernmental financial institution based in Washington D.C. that fights poverty by providing loans to developing countries, sponsoring research and promoting policy change worldwide.
How to Use This Resource: The cost of urban losses from flooding in coastal cities will rise 850 percent in 50 years, according to this World Bank report. Its findings are summarized in this article, which includes a link to purchase the full report. The report is part of a series, “Turn Down the Heat,” that looks at expected rises in sea level and their impact on vulnerable regions around the world.
Overwhelming Risk: Rethinking Flood Insurance in a World of Rising Seas
Overview: The Union of Concerned Scientists is an independent consortium of scientists and advocates that work to develop and promote sustainable policies worldwide.
How to Use This Resource: As sea levels and flood risks rise, coastal development and a growing population put more people in harm’s way. This report studies how flood insurance reform can better manage growing risk.
National Landmarks at Risk
Overview: The Union of Concerned Scientists is an independent consortium of scientists and advocates that work to develop and promote sustainable policies worldwide.
How to Use This Resource: Climate change has put many of the United States’ iconic landmarks and heritage sites at risk. This report is a selection of case studies that illustrate the urgency of the problem. According to its findings, the Statue of Liberty, the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Boston Historical Districts, and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado could all face dire fates without action.
FEMA on Climate Change
Overview: The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency supports citizens and first responders to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from and mitigate hazards.
How to Use This Resource: FEMA’s climate change site provides access to a wide range of its own tools and data, as well as those from other agencies. Links are provided to information on risk mapping, the federal flood risk management standard, coastal flood risks and hurricanes. Search elsewhere within the FEMA site for information on flood insurance, emergency response, and activities in regions of the country, as well as preparing for emergencies.
Adaptation Clearinghouse Database
Overview: The nonpartisan Georgetown Climate Center is a branch of Georgetown Law and advocates for climate adaptation, clean energy, and transportation policies in the United States.
How to Use This Resource: The Adaptation Clearinghouse is a database of Georgetown Climate Center research, reports, maps and resources. It is searchable by policy area, organizations, topic and keyword.
State and Local Climate Adaptation Map
Overview: The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions is an independent nonprofit advocating for policy action to address climate change. It is the successor to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
How to Use This Resource: This map shows how American cities and states are adapting to their individual climate challenges. It includes examples of city adaptation actions and provides plan details on a city and state level where available.
Resilient Cities: A Grosvenor Research Report
Overview: Grosvenor is a privately owned property group with properties across the globe that advocates for sustainable growth and climate adaptation.
How to Use This Resource: This report ranked the major cities of the world by climate resiliency. American cities dominated the top of the list and only two European cities, Stockholm and Zurich, made the top 10. The lowest ranking cities were those with high population forecasts and shoddy infrastructure, such as Mexico City. This data will be useful to journalists looking for contextual information.