RESILIENCENew Insights on Community Resilience and Adaptation

A major weather event such as a hurricane or wildfire can have lasting, visible impacts on communities, but the longer-term, compounding effects of a changing climate can be harder to see. In its contributions to the recently released Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) highlights ways that communities can adapt and become more resilient as the climate changes. 

The NCA5, a congressionally mandated report by multiple U.S. government agencies, analyzes the impacts, risks and responses of global climate change in the United States, and the message is clear: Communities must adapt. To help communities make decisions to improve their resilience, the report provides comprehensive information on how people across the country are experiencing climate change, the risks we face now and in the future, and actions underway to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience. 

The NCA5 takes a much more holistic approach to understanding climate impacts than its previous editions have. For the first time in the report’s multi-decade history, chapters on social equity and environmental justice have been included. Also, for the first time, NIST has several authors contributing to the report, in chapters that explore how communities can adapt to climate change while promoting the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all affected. 

Jennifer Helgeson, a research economist at NIST, worked with experts from across the country to analyze the challenges that low-income and socially vulnerable communities face due to climate change and their possible solutions. “This focus on equity and justice is new ground for the National Climate Assessment,” Helgeson said, noting that previous versions of the report concentrated mainly on the physical sciences related to climate change.

The report details that the adverse effects of climate change are likely to exacerbate social and economic disparities throughout the nation. Historically disadvantaged groups, including the low-income, very young, very old, and communities of color, are disproportionately exposed to our climate-altered world and are expected to bear an even heavier burden in the decades to come.

While adaptation planning and implementation have advanced in the U.S., most adaptation actions to date have been incremental and small in scale. The report indicates that more transformative adaptation will be necessary to adequately address the risks of current and future climate change.