U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

Created especially for decision makers and adaptation planners in the Great Lakes region, this report offers planners guidance in developing adaptation plans while navigating local politics and specialized data. Content is accessible for users of all skill levels, with a focus on beginner. The report is divided into six main sections: Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region, Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Climate Information in the Local Planning Process, Data Analysis Guide for Assessing Climate Vulnerability, Building Climate Knowledge and Capacity, and Making the Case. 

This report provides national, regional, and local information to support effective decision making by U.S. agricultural producers, resource managers, and other agricultural system stakeholders.  A set of 20 indicators identifies high-priority agricultural and climate data products while providing the basis for tracking climate change as it plays out across American working lands, toward devising adaptive operational responses.

The report was written as input to the sustained National Climate Assessment process to provide a discrete set of variables that describe linkages between climate trends and variability and U.S. agriculture in recent decades. An additional objective is that the indicators themselves (along with the frameworks for constructing location- and operation-specifc indicators) provide an information resource that can help information service programs, such as USDA’s Climate Hubs, evaluate operational risks posed by climate change in specifc production systems across the country.