U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

In 1950, fewer than one-third of the world's people lived in cities. Today more than half do. By 2050, urban areas will be home to some two-thirds of Earth's human population. This scale and pace of urbanization has never been seen in human history.

The report provides a foundation for new scientific collaborations on how cities function, how they grow, and how they can be managed sustainably for decades to come.

This report acknowledges that climate adaptation has begun to emerge as a field of practice, but states that the work is not evolving quickly or deliberately enough for communities to adequately prepare for the dangerous shocks and stresses that increasingly will be introduced by climate change. The report assesses the current state of the climate adaptation field, provides a vision of what a mature, effective field would look like, and recommends steps that should be taken to realize that vision.

Each year the Global Risks Report works with experts and decision makers across the world to identify and analyze the most pressing risks that we face. As the pace of change accelerates, and as risk interconnections deepen, this year’s report highlights the growing strain we are placing on many of the global systems we rely on. The top risks listed in this year's report, which reflect the concerns of global industry leaders, include extreme weather events, natural disasters, and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation—ranked first, second, and fifth in likelihood and second, third, and fourth in impact, respectively.

This report assesses county-level crop and cash rents estimates, and offers recommendations on methods for integrating data sources to provide more precise county-level estimates of acreage and yield for major crops and of cash rents by land use. The report considers technical issues involved in using the available data sources, such as methods for integrating the data, the assumptions underpinning the use of each source, the robustness of the resulting estimates, and the properties of desirable estimates of uncertainty.

Coastal flooding in the United States is already occurring and the risk of flooding is expected to grow in most coastal regions, in part due to climate change. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed this booklet, aimed at the general public, that identifies steps people can take to prepare for the health risks associated with coastal flooding. The booklet answers some of the key questions about coastal flooding in a changing climate: why these events are on the rise; how it might affect health; and what people can do before, during, and after a coastal flooding event to stay safe. Scientific information used in the document is derived from peer-reviewed synthesis and assessment products, including those published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as other peer-reviewed sources and federal agency resources. 

Urban populations are facing increasing challenges from numerous natural and man-made pressures, such as rapid urbanisation, climate change, terrorism, and increased risks from natural hazards. Cities must learn to adapt and thrive in the face of these diverse challenges—they must learn how to build resilience in an uncertain world. Armed with this knowledge and understanding, governments, donors, investors, policy makers, and the private sector will be able to develop effective strategies to foster more resilient cities. Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the City Resilience Index is being developed by Arup. It builds on extensive research undertaken by Arup to establish an accessible, evidence-based definition of urban resilience, which culminated in the publication of the City Resilience Framework (CRF) in April 2014. This provides a holistic articulation of city resilience, structured around four dimensions and 12 goals that are critical for the resilience of our cities. This structure also forms the foundations of the CRI.

This report presents the common trends in how 12 local governments across the country developed and implemented stormwater policies to support green infrastructure. The local policies examined include interagency cooperation, enforcement and management issues, and integration with state and federal regulations. While a strong motivation for these policies and programs is innovation in stormwater management, many communities are moving past the era of single objective spending and investing in runoff reduction and stormwater management strategies that have multiple benefits. Green infrastructure approaches have a range of benefits for the social, environmental, and economic conditions of a community. Not only do these case studies include success stories for building a comprehensive green infrastructure program, but they also provide insight into the barriers and failures these communities experienced while trying to create a stormwater management system that includes more green infrastructure approaches.