About the Exchange
Who Is the Intended Audience for This Site?
The primary audience for the site:
- Elected officials
- Community leaders
- Staff from local governments, tribal councils, regional councils of governments, state government agencies and nonprofit organizations
Secondary users include researchers and students from higher education institutions and members of the public.
Contact Us
The State of North Carolina maintains this site with support from the NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency and the NC Department of Environmental Quality.
Please contact us at if you have questions, know of additional resources, find a link that does not work or discover information you know to be inaccurate.
Andrea Webster
NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency
(919) 576-6450
resilience@ncdps.gov or andrea.webster@ncdps.gov
Supporting Partners
Many partners help make this website possible. The State of North Carolina partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the State Climate Office of North Carolina to produce this site. The State adapted content from EPA’s Climate Change Adaptation Resource Center and from NOAA’s US Climate Resilience Toolkit. The State Climate Office provided local-level climate projections. The State of North Carolina’s continuing partnership with EPA, NOAA and the State Climate Office will ensure that the NC Resilience Exchange provides the most current and relevant information to North Carolina’s communities. The State of North Carolina appreciates the support of these agencies.
This site is also supported by an advisory board made up of staff from NC’s local governments and Councils of Government, nonprofis, academic institutions and state agencies. The purpose of the board is to ensure our state’s Resilience Exchange offers relevant and easy-to-find information that helps local leaders build resilience to the impacts of climate change.
To design this site, the US Climate Alliance provided external consulting services. These services helped the State of North Carolina gather input from community representatives on what content would be most helpful. The State of North Carolina appreciates the support of the US Climate Alliance.
FAQs
Start with the navigation at the top of this page. After checking out the site, if you would appreciate having a conversation with someone, contact the NC Resilience Exchange support team using the Contact Us section above. Staff are available to talk with you about your resilience goals.
If your question is about a specific challenge, visit the Find Experts page.
Visit our Find Resources section of the website. It contains templates for updating or writing new ordinances, sample plans and a database of websites offering technical assistance. Many of these resources are meant to save you time. You can also check out the Find Funding. Some funding opportunities provide resources for hiring new staff and obtaining direct technical assistance. In addition, the two web pages on grant writing provide guidance on writing your own grants and finding others to help you write funding applications.
If you are still unsure where to start, please contact the NC Resilience Exchange support team using the Contact Us section above.
Resilience is complex, and categorizing resilience challenges and solutions is difficult. This site uses the following categories to help you filter the actions, success stories, and funding and technical assistance databases.
| Action Types | |
|---|---|
| Capacity Building | Increasing the ability of a local government or community to achieve resilience goals (e.g., local governments hiring new staff or training existing staff, developing internal local government policies, installing technology that enables local government staff to manage water within the stormwater system) |
| Capital Improvements - Gray Infrastructure | Designing, planning or completing improvements, repairs, removals, replacements or new installations of gray infrastructure (e.g., pipes, ditches, culverts, dams, seawalls, roads, water treatment plants, other non-natural infrastructure) |
| Equity and Justice | Actively looking to repair the harms done to people and places by centering and prioritizing the needs and experiences of underserved and under-resourced residents (e.g., prioritizing resilience resources in underserved areas of the community) |
| Funding and Finance | Identifying or developing sources and mechanisms to help local governments or community leaders pay for a project or encouraging residents and businesses to pay for a project that increases climate resilience (e.g., financial and code-based incentives, grants, municipal tax revenues, user fees, capital improvement budgets, municipal bonds, revolving loan funds, land banks) |
| Health, Wellness and Security | Efforts to lessen or prevent immediate and long-term impacts of climate change on the health and wellness of people and on their ability to afford regular expenses and access jobs |
| Land Conservation | The long-term protection and management of undeveloped land resources, such as open space, farmland and forestland; the restoration and enhancement and long-term protection of waterways and other aquatic resources |
| Monitoring, Evaluation and Metrics | Developing methods to measure the threat levels of a hazard or check the effectiveness of an implemented resilience project (e.g., introducing a stream monitoring system that alerts staff and emergency management about rising water levels, regularly monitoring restored ecosystems) |
| Nature-Based Solutions | Sustainable planning, design, environmental management and engineering practices that incorporate natural features or processes into the built environment to promote adaptation and resilience (e.g., wetland restoration and protection, stormwater parks, living shorelines, green roofs, rainwater harvesting with cisterns, permeable pavement, rain gardens, bioretention areas, trees, vegetated swales) |
| Partnerships and Collaboration | When two or more entities agree to work together toward a common goal (e.g., a local government works internally across departments or with community organizations, academic institutions, and the private sector to complete a resilience project) |
| Plan Development | Completing the steps required to identify the projects, programs and policies needed to make a specified area or sector more resilient to the impacts of natural hazards and climate change (e.g., vulnerability assessments, other assessments and studies, community input, resilience plan adoption) |
| Preparedness and Response | Increasing the ability of residents and local resources to withstand and quickly respond to the impacts of natural hazards and climate change, including preparing for the management of contaminated sites and disaster debris |
| Public Education and Outreach | Ensuring community members have access to information and resources to help them prepare and protect themselves against the impacts of natural hazards and climate change; establishing a two-way exchange of information, empowering community members through information and resources and building a strong foundation of community support for resilience initiatives |
| Regulations and Ordinances | Developing or updating rules and mechanisms for establishing legal requirements and monitoring and enforcing compliance (e.g., regulatory incentives, land use policies, zoning ordinances) |
| Relocation and Buyouts | Developing or using mechanisms or programs that enable a governmental entity to acquire property from landowners and help residents and businesses living within those properties move to another location, usually to reduce their exposure to recurrent flooding or sea level rise |
| Assets | |
|---|---|
| All Assets | All community resources, including those listed below |
| Aquatic and Marine Resources | Rivers, streams and other waterways, lakes, pocosins, wetlands, estuaries, coastal waterways and beaches, and the species that live in and around them |
| Critical Facilities | Utility facilities, hospitals and other health facilities, fire stations, police stations, storage of critical records, schools and other structures that help protect the health and safety of residents |
| Economy | A community's or larger area's activities associated with the production, trade and consumption of goods and services; availability of jobs and livelihoods |
| Energy and Utilities | Infrastructure designed to support the generation, production, retention and distribution of electricity, natural gas and broadband infrastructure (e.g., solar installations, wind farms, microgrids, fossil fuels, power plants, transmission lines) |
| Forestry and Agriculture | Lands managed for tree harvesting and agriculture, including livestock and crop farms; and food distribution resources, including grocery stores and farmers markets |
| Natural Areas and Wildlife | Natural forests, grasslands and other open space lands, and the species that live in and around them |
| People | Residents, visitors and tourists |
| Property | Land used for residential, commercial, industrial and governmental purposes |
| Stormwater Infrastructure | Constructed and natural systems used to collect, convey, hold, treat or filter precipitation (e.g., stormwater pipes, retention basins, green infrastructure, agricultural ditches); stormwater infrastructure can be publicly or privately owned |
| Transportation and Mobility | The systems and resources available to help individuals move from one place to another (e.g., sidewalks, bike lanes, roads, bridges, buses) |
| Urban Landscape and Tree Canopy | Urban landscape: the man-made and natural elements found outdoors in developed areas, whether rural or urban Tree canopy: the area covered by trees, including the extent of the branches and leaves |
| Water Infrastructure – Drinking Water | Infrastructure designed to support the collection, storage, treatment and distribution of drinking water (e.g., drinking water sources such as lakes, aquifers and reservoirs; water storage systems; water-source related dams; treatment plants; pipes that transport drinking water) |
| Water Infrastructure – Wastewater | Infrastructure designed to collect, transport and treat used water, such as from toilets, sinks, showers and tubs, washing machines, dishwashers, garbage disposals and water that has been used in manufacturing processes (e.g., collection system pipes, pump stations, septic systems, treatment plants) |
| Hazards | |
|---|---|
| All Hazards | All hazards presented by climate change, including all hazards listed below |
| Air Quality | The worsening of indoor or outdoor air quality, often because of other climate hazards (e.g., previously flooded homes can lead to poor indoor air quality; wildfire smoke can lead to poor outdoor air quality) |
| Changing Seasons | The increasing length of warm weather (e.g., North Carolina's growing season is now 12 days longer than average) and decreasing length of the cold season |
| Drought | The more frequent and/or intense occurrence of a lack of precipitation over an extended period resulting in water shortages |
| Erosion – Coastal and Inland | Coastal: More dramatic oceanfront and sound-side erosion caused or exacerbated by the increase in strong coastal storms and sea level rise Inland: The increase in erosion of streambeds, hillsides and riverbanks caused or exacerbated by more intense rainfall |
| Extreme Heat | Higher heat index values, more high daytime and nighttime temperatures, more heat waves and higher temperatures in developed landscapes, also known as urban heat islands (Note: "urban" heat islands can occur in any developed area, including small towns as well as large cities) |
| Flooding – Coastal | Floods caused by coastal conditions, including tidal flooding, storm surge, sea level rise and rising ground water along the coast, as well as impacts from these hazards, such as saltwater intrusion |
| Flooding - General | Floods that occur because of more frequent and intense rainfall, including floods caused by deficient stormwater and drainage infrastructure (i.e., urban and stormwater flooding); overflowing rivers and other waterways (i.e., fluvial or riverine flooding); overtopped or breached dams and levees; and when intense, short-duration rainfalls cause surface flooding independent of an overflowing waterbody (i.e., pluvial flooding) |
| Landslides | The increasing chance for movement in a mass of rock, debris or earth down a slope, especially because of the growing frequency of heavy rainstorms, hurricanes and freeze-thaw temperatures, which increase landslide risk; includes rockfalls, mudflows and debris flows |
| Severe Winter Weather | Heavy snowfall, polar vortexes and ice storms (Note: this chance is decreasing across most of the state, but higher elevations along the Tennessee border may see more snowfall from the Great Lakes in the coming decades) |
| Shifting Species, Habitats and Ecosystems | Changing climate patterns alter habitats and ecosystems, which can challenge the animals and plants, including agricultural plants, living and growing there |
| Vector-borne Diseases | Diseases transmitted primarily by ticks, mosquitoes and fleas (e.g., Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme's disease, Tidewater spotted fever) |
| Water Quality | The worsening of the condition of natural water sources available to people, plants and animals (e.g., heavy rains can flood stormwater and sewage systems; during droughts, more harmful algal blooms occur) |
| Wildfire | The increase in the conditions, including the growing number of weeks without precipitation, that can lead to larger and more dangerous fires in undeveloped areas that can spread to developed areas |
| Wind | The increasing number of high-wind events, especially from tropical storms, hurricanes, tornadoes — which can spawn from hurricanes and other severe storms |
For more in-depth information about anticipated climate hazards, see the 2020 North Carolina Climate Science Report (PDF).
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