Many tools are available to help communities anticipate, plan for and adapt to increasing temperatures, more frequent floods, recurring droughts and other impacts of the changing climate. While the majority of the tools listed below are those developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Environmental Resilience Institute seeks to expand this list to be more inclusive of tools developed by other agencies, nonprofits, universities and businesses, as appropriate. The most relevant tools are listed below, by category.
If you know of tools missing from this list, please contact us.
Environmental Justice Screening (EJSCREEN) is a mapping tool that allows users to create maps and generate detailed reports based on the geographic areas and data sets they choose. EJSCREEN includes data from multiple factors that may affect public and environmental health within a community or region.
The Green Infrastructure Guide helps communities plan and design green infrastructure for multiple environmental, health, social, and economic benefits.
The ICLUS project is developing scenarios broadly consistent with global-scale, peer-reviewed storylines of population growth and economic development, which are used by climate change modelers to develop projections of future climate.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Playbook offers a six-step process that assists communities in gaining insights into resilience planning issues, identify the most effective resilience improvement projects, and improve a community's overall resilience to hazard events. The guide is based on the experience and expertise of community officials and technical experts who are involved in improving resilience measures around the United States.
This tool from the US Department of Transportation helps communities examine both the environmental and economic costs and benefits of alternative fuel and advanced vehicles.
A software tool to assist drinking water and wastewater utility owners and operators in understanding potential climate change threats and in assessing the related risks at their individual utilities.
This tool helps cities learn about their energy use, and compare it to other communities. Find details about the electricity and natural gas market in your area including utility information, rates, renewable resources, energy usage and expenditures. This information can lead to more strategic energy decisions and can help plan and implement clean energy projects.
This resource from FEMA provides an interactive data tool to better understand historical flood risk and potential costs.
The Flood Resilience Checklist is an assessment tool for communities to use to identify opportunities to improve their resilience to future floods through policy and regulatory tools.
The Low Emission Transport Toolkit supports development planners, technical experts and decision-makers at national and local levels to plan and implement low emission transport systems that support economic growth. Although the resource provides examples from around the globe, many resources are relevant to local governments in the U.S.
This toolkit from the Georgetown Climate Center combines legal and policy tools, best and emerging practices, and case studies to support learning and decision-making around managed retreat and climate adaptation.
Application "used for single event or long-term simulations of water runoff quantity and quality in primarily urban areas–although there are also many applications that can be used for drainage systems in non-urban areas." "SWMM allows engineers and planners to represent combinations of green infrastructure practices as LID controls to determine their effectiveness in managing runoff."
This tool from the US Forest Service provides spatial data to describe the range of known damaging non-indigenous forest pests, including insects and pathogens.
BASINS is a multipurpose environmental analysis system designed to help regional, state, and local agencies perform watershed- and water quality-based studies.
The Handbook provides a framework for considering climate change in water management planning. The handbook guides resource managers and planners with key decision considerations, resources, tools, and decision options to adapt to a changing climate.
The Climate Change Response Framework was developed by the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science, which works with partners to lead adaptation strategies across the Midwest and Northeast. These demonstrations, strategies, and workbooks provide practical options to help land managers and organizations adapt forests and ecosystems to changing conditions.
This tool from the US Forest Service allows the user to explore and compare the potential habitat shifts of more than 130 tree species and almost 150 bird species.
This website includes a map explorer and database that has over 180 aquatic non-indigenous plants and animals that are present, expanding their ranges within, or predicted to invade the Great Lakes basin. This resource also provides risk and impact assessment, sampling, and response plan protocols for local decision makers.
Find hazards and climate change resources that Great Lakes counties and municipalities can use to communicate coastal issues and inform existing and future land use, infrastructure and natural resource plans and policies to enhance community resiliency.
The Indiana Solar Site Pollinator Habitat Planning Scorecard is an industry- and stakeholder-driven tool for solar developers to determine if their solar site is pollinator-friendly. One major challenge is ensuring that the site plans put forward (by developers or the site planners they employ) meet some minimum criteria for being pollinator-friendly. The scorecard provides a means for them to make that assessment.
This software program, developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, provides urban and rural forestry analysis and benefits assessment tools. It calculates tree canopy surface and offers information about the financial benefits of trees. This tool also provides guidance on maintenance costs and offers insight into optimal tree selection based on identified climate and environmental goals.
This index is a database from the National Invasive Species Information Center that provides a wide range of resources for local practitioners to understand the impacts of, community-based approaches for, and grants and funding for invasive species action.
EPA’s National Stormwater Calculator (SWC) is a software application that estimates the annual amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff from a specific site. It is designed to be used by anyone interested in reducing runoff from a property, including site developers, landscape architects, urban planners, and homeowners.
This toolkit from the Michigan Lake Stewardship Association provides tools, case studies, and background material to help municipalities and county governments reach a variety of goals related to inland lakes such as improving conditions for aquatic ecosystems, reducing pollutants and excess nutrients or sediment, and more.
The RSQA from the US Geological Society seeks to characterize multiple water-quality factors that are stressors to aquatic life ‐ contaminants, nutrients, sediment, and streamflow alteration – and to develop a better understanding of the relation of these stressors to ecological conditions in streams throughout the region.
This tool from the US Forest Service and Center for International Forestry Research helps users understand the importance of wetlands ecosystems as carbon reservoirs for climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.
This US Forest Service step-by-step guide provides strategies for implementing urban forestry in communities, as wells as relevant impacts, research, and case studies.
The WSIO Tool is an application that enables users to compare watersheds in a user-defined geographic area, using factors of their own choosing. It calculates indices, compares watersheds, and produces results in rank-ordered tables, graphs and maps. Most national datasets require knowledge of advanced GIS skills and software. WSIO transforms these data into simple watershed indicators, and then makes them accessible in a common spreadsheet application (Excel).
This toolkit from the Association of State Wetlands Managers provides print and digital materials to help incorporate wetland resource management into municipal planning, and the tools to accomplish the work. The materials use New York as an example, but can be broadly applied across geographies.
This tool from the US Fish & Wildlife Service's National Wetlands Inventory provides map-like views of wetland resources, as well as status, extent, characteristics, and functions of wetlands, riparian, and deepwater habitats.
The Renewables Accelerator provides tools, resources, and technical assistance to help U.S. cities achieve their renewable energy goals. This resource works with cohorts of cities grouped around renewable procurement methods to deliver knowledge and peer learning in order to implement and scale clean energy.
This tool helps cities learn about their energy use, and compare it to other communities. Find details about the electricity and natural gas market in your area including utility information, rates, renewable resources, energy usage and expenditures. This information can lead to more strategic energy decisions and can help plan and implement clean energy projects.
This site provides local governments energy management strategies, free tools to save energy and money, and tips for demonstrating environmental leadership. The program provides information on how to access model government efficiency policies and programs that leverage ENERGY STAR tools like Portfolio Manager and Target Finder.
This toolkit from Getting to Zero Forum is for states and local jurisdictions looking to reduce energy use and carbon emissions in their own publicly-owned commercial buildings and the general community building stock.
The Indiana Solar Site Pollinator Habitat Planning Scorecard is an industry- and stakeholder-driven tool for solar developers to determine if their solar site is pollinator-friendly. One major challenge is ensuring that the site plans put forward (by developers or the site planners they employ) meet some minimum criteria for being pollinator-friendly. The scorecard provides a means for them to make that assessment.
The MI Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute developed the Michigan Zoning Database, a searchable source of information of municipal ordinances across Michigan that address siting for renewable energy installations. The database covers zoning jurisdictions, wind energy, and solar energy, as well as demographic and geographic information about each community.
The Renewables Accelerator provides cutting-edge tools, resources and technical assistance to help U.S. cities advance ambitious renewable energy goals.This site is intended to be a one-stop shop for local governments in the U.S. to effectively procure and scale clean energy. The tools, resources, and guidance provided and documented on the site are all free to use and publicly accessible.
This USEPA tool for local governments allows for assessment of the energy performance of building designs and existing buildings. Target Finder allows you to see what annual energy usage you need to achieve to meet a target and to evaluate estimated energy use.
This website examines six key issues that have important implications for developing on-site solar projects. Each topic area offers a brief summary of the issue, identifies key resources and addresses major questions and hurdles key sustainability experts have identified as information gaps or obstacles in their development of new on-site solar projects.
The Racial Equity Tool can be used prior to making decisions related to policy, planning, programming, and budgeting within city governments and other institutions looking to advance racial equity and shared prosperity. The tool requires a form to be completed but is free to use.
This University of Missouri Extension toolkit helps communities organize a garden and introduces project planners to the policies, procedures, and connections that are helpful for starting and sustaining community gardens.
Environmental Justice Screening (EJSCREEN) is a mapping tool that allows users to create maps and generate detailed reports based on the geographic areas and data sets they choose. EJSCREEN includes data from multiple factors that may affect public and environmental health within a community or region.
This toolkit highlights best and emerging practice examples of how cities are addressing disproportionate socioeconomic risk to climate impacts and engaging overburdened communities. This toolkit will further explore how cities are moving beyond equitable adaptation planning and implementing policies that address both social equity and climate resilience.
The Equity Assessment Tool provides a series of sample metrics that allow communities to understand their racial disparities and develop analyses and strategies to address those disparities. It was developed as part of the Zero Cities Project, which is a three-year project that supports cities in developing policy plans and strategies to achieve a zero-carbon building sector that centers around racial equity.
The NAACP has developed a list of indicators/measures of vulnerability and resilience in terms of infrastructure, community/population characteristics, systems, policies, programs/services, protocols, and governance/decision making. These indicators are intended for city planners, organizations, elected officials, and more to be able to consider equity in their adaptation plans.
This database from Growing Food Connections is filled with food policies from across the country that can be searched by policy type, type of government, year, geography, population range, and keyword.
The Good Food Purchasing Program provides a metric based framework to assist large institutions in prioritizing local economies, environmental sustainability, value workforce, animal welfare, and nutrition in their food purchasing policies.
This toolkit provides a survey that can be used to measure the healthfulness of a community's local food pantry environment.
This guide from the USEPA helps communities create action plans to achieve local food and revitalization goals. It includes recommended assessments, sample materials for hosting workshops, action planning templates, and more.
The Rural Food Access Toolkit compiles evidence-based and promising models and resources to support organizations implementing food access programs in rural communities across the United States. The modules in the toolkit contain resources and information focused on developing, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining rural food access and food security programs.
This toolkit provides seven modules to assist local governments in collecting food system data, conducting impact assessments, engaging the community, analyzing linkages, and measuring the impact of improving their local food system.
This toolkit will help planners integrate health and equity in their comprehensive plan and plan-making processes. The toolkit builds on APA’s Comprehensive Plan Standards for Sustaining Places initiative, which established a framework for addressing sustainability through comprehensive plans. It contains model language about goals, policies, and action items from 15 existing comprehensive plans that have focused on health and equity.
The University of Iowa Office of Sustainability and the Environment has curated a list of tools, organizations, and grants that can be used as communities integrate environmental justice into their environmental initiatives.
This US Forest Service step-by-step guide provides strategies for implementing urban forestry in communities, as wells as relevant impacts, research, and case studies.
This University of Missouri Extension toolkit helps communities organize a garden and introduces project planners to the policies, procedures, and connections that are helpful for starting and sustaining community gardens.
This guide from Purdue University Extension is a free, downloadable electronic resource to help local governments integrate agriculture and natural resources into community land use planning efforts for developing or updating comprehensive plans.
This database from Growing Food Connections is filled with food policies from across the country that can be searched by policy type, type of government, year, geography, population range, and keyword.
The Good Food Purchasing Program provides a metric based framework to assist large institutions in prioritizing local economies, environmental sustainability, value workforce, animal welfare, and nutrition in their food purchasing policies.
This toolkit provides a survey that can be used to measure the healthfulness of a community's local food pantry environment.
This guide from the USEPA helps communities create action plans to achieve local food and revitalization goals. It includes recommended assessments, sample materials for hosting workshops, action planning templates, and more.
This tool has educational resources, information on USDA conservation programs, and guidance on advocating for stronger climate policy tailored to farmers and rural communities.
The Rural Food Access Toolkit compiles evidence-based and promising models and resources to support organizations implementing food access programs in rural communities across the United States. The modules in the toolkit contain resources and information focused on developing, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining rural food access and food security programs.
This toolkit provides seven modules to assist local governments in collecting food system data, conducting impact assessments, engaging the community, analyzing linkages, and measuring the impact of improving their local food system.
This guide provides tools, practical policy guidance, and examples for ways municipalities can reduce emissions and improve health through their food purchasing activities.
The Urban Agriculture Toolkit, produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, identifies the common operational elements that most urban farmers must consider as they start up or grow their operations. It also contains a special section on resources for developing indoor growing operations, such as aquaponics facilities. For each element, the toolkit identifies technical and financial resources that have been developed by federal, state and local partners. While some of the elements require local-level solutions (e.g. zoning), federal programs and services can support a variety of activities related to urban farming.
The resource is designed to improve the resilience and profitability of U.S. farms in the corn belt amid a changing climate. Over a six-year period from April 2011 - April 2017, 122 faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students from ten Midwestern universities contributed to this interdisciplinary project. This suite of decision support tools provides weather, climate, drought and cropping data for agricultural advisers, producers and decision makers in the nation's Corn Belt.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Playbook offers a six-step process that assists communities in gaining insights into resilience planning issues, identify the most effective resilience improvement projects, and improve a community's overall resilience to hazard events. The guide is based on the experience and expertise of community officials and technical experts who are involved in improving resilience measures around the United States.
BASINS is a multipurpose environmental analysis system designed to help regional, state, and local agencies perform watershed- and water quality-based studies.
Clearpath is a web application for energy and emissions management at the local level. The tool is most commonly used for completing municipal and community scale greenhouse gas inventories. The cloud-based tool provides data storage, colleague collaboration opportunities and greenhouse gas tracking, calculation, analysis and forecasting capabilities. ClearPath is offered by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, which requires membership to gain access. Annual membership fees range from $600 to $8,000 depending on population. ClearPath is free to Global Covenant of Mayors signatories in the U.S.
The Handbook provides a framework for considering climate change in water management planning. The handbook guides resource managers and planners with key decision considerations, resources, tools, and decision options to adapt to a changing climate.
This resource from the National Weather Service provides a wide range of real-time tools and information to better understand local climate, water, and weather activity and risks, including a hazards outlook, drought information, and more.
This guide from Purdue University Extension is a free, downloadable electronic resource to help local governments integrate agriculture and natural resources into community land use planning efforts for developing or updating comprehensive plans.
CRAFT is an online platform that provides small communities and their local governments with an assessment of their resilience strengths and vulnerabilities. These assessments are typically used to inform strategic planning initiatives and resilience funding decisions. The CRAFT process involves a series of indicator questions and a facilitated workshop that will determine a community resilience score and offer recommendations for next steps. CRAFT is offered by the Institute for Building Technology and Safety for communities of 100,000 population or less. Prices range from $10K-15K depending on community size.
A software tool to assist drinking water and wastewater utility owners and operators in understanding potential climate change threats and in assessing the related risks at their individual utilities.
The NAACP has developed a list of indicators/measures of vulnerability and resilience in terms of infrastructure, community/population characteristics, systems, policies, programs/services, protocols, and governance/decision making. These indicators are intended for city planners, organizations, elected officials, and more to be able to consider equity in their adaptation plans.
The Flood Resilience Checklist is an assessment tool for communities to use to identify opportunities to improve their resilience to future floods through policy and regulatory tools.
The Great Plains Institute’s (GPI) climate ordinance database is a web-based tool that allows planning professionals to explore relevant model climate ordinances to better understand what other communities are doing on climate. The database allows users to filter ordinance search results to ensure that their search relates to their specific work and areas of interests.
Find hazards and climate change resources that Great Lakes counties and municipalities can use to communicate coastal issues and inform existing and future land use, infrastructure and natural resource plans and policies to enhance community resiliency.
The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Contribution Analysis Toolkit is designed to assist communities in the application of new analysis techniques to identify the biggest drivers influencing greenhouse gas performance of communities. By accounting for significant sources of noise in the data, this approach aims to provide communities with a more through understanding of the nature of the problem they are trying to solve. The toolkit contains a greenhouse gas contribution analysis Excel tool, a guidance document, a quick start guide, a data collection checklist and data request templates. The Contribution Analysis Toolkit is offered by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. Online training is available with the toolkit.
The ICLUS project is developing scenarios broadly consistent with global-scale, peer-reviewed storylines of population growth and economic development, which are used by climate change modelers to develop projections of future climate.
This website provides more than 1000 model and actual federal, state and local laws that legislatures can customize and adopt in order to achieve deep reductions in fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions.
EPA’s National Stormwater Calculator (SWC) is a software application that estimates the annual amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff from a specific site. It is designed to be used by anyone interested in reducing runoff from a property, including site developers, landscape architects, urban planners, and homeowners.
The Regional Resilience Toolkit is designed to help cities, regions, and other partners integrate various planning processes – including for hazard mitigation, climate adaptation, sustainability, and equity – into a single process to create a community action plan.
The MI Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute developed the Michigan Zoning Database, a searchable source of information of municipal ordinances across Michigan that address siting for renewable energy installations. The database covers zoning jurisdictions, wind energy, and solar energy, as well as demographic and geographic information about each community.
This mapping tool provides easy to access scenarios of projected changes from EPA's Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool for annual total precipitation, annual average temperature, precipitation intensity for the 100-year storm, number of days per year with temperatures above 100 F, and sea-level rise for coastal locations.
This resource from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information provides historical and current localized information on the occurrence of significant storms, rare weather phenomena, and other significant meteorological events such as record maximum and minimum temperatures.
In addition to current worst-case coastal storm surge or inundation scenarios and hurricane strike frequency, this multi-source dataset mapping tool illustrates 100 and 500 year flood plains from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Application "used for single event or long-term simulations of water runoff quantity and quality in primarily urban areas–although there are also many applications that can be used for drainage systems in non-urban areas." "SWMM allows engineers and planners to represent combinations of green infrastructure practices as LID controls to determine their effectiveness in managing runoff."
This site covers 32 topics related to sustainable development code, with 25-35 recommendations to amend development code per topic. The recommendations can help local governments remove obstacles, create incentives, and remove regulatory gaps in order to help communities become more resilient, environmentally conscious, economically secure, and socially equitable.
The People's Planning Academy is a series of six workshops led by city planners to engage other local government employees and residents in shaping a city land use plan. Participants gain basic knowledge about city planning and, using Indianapolis as an example, learn how planning can support local resilience. This series was created through a partnership between City of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center. The workshops can be accessed for free online, through local television, or in person. Content was designed for Indianapolis residents, but is relevant to communities across Indiana and beyond.
This toolkit will help planners integrate health and equity in their comprehensive plan and plan-making processes. The toolkit builds on APA’s Comprehensive Plan Standards for Sustaining Places initiative, which established a framework for addressing sustainability through comprehensive plans. It contains model language about goals, policies, and action items from 15 existing comprehensive plans that have focused on health and equity.
This tool from the Metropolitan Council provides an assessment report, data sets, interactive mapping tools, and story maps to help the 7-county greater Twin Cities area prepare for extreme heat and flooding events.
USEPA created the Waste Reduction Model (WARM) to help solid waste planners and organizations track and voluntarily report greenhouse gas emissions reductions from several different waste management practices – source reduction, recycling, composting, anaerobic digestion, combustion and landfilling. WARM can be used by state and local governments, solid waste planners, students, small businesses and other organizations interested in the energy and greenhouse gas impacts from materials management decisions.
The WSIO Tool is an application that enables users to compare watersheds in a user-defined geographic area, using factors of their own choosing. It calculates indices, compares watersheds, and produces results in rank-ordered tables, graphs and maps. Most national datasets require knowledge of advanced GIS skills and software. WSIO transforms these data into simple watershed indicators, and then makes them accessible in a common spreadsheet application (Excel).
BASINS is a multipurpose environmental analysis system designed to help regional, state, and local agencies perform watershed- and water quality-based studies.
The Handbook provides a framework for considering climate change in water management planning. The handbook guides resource managers and planners with key decision considerations, resources, tools, and decision options to adapt to a changing climate.
This interactive map from the Center for Biological Diversity allows communities to identify how they will be affected by increased spread of insects and diseases that will come with climate change. Users can identify predicted diseases by county and risk level.
This toolkit provides local public health departments a step-by-step guide for the facilitation of climate and health community engagement meetings, prioritization of local climate-related health concerns, creation of community-driven action steps, and evaluation of both process and outcomes of climate and health community engagement activities.
A software tool to assist drinking water and wastewater utility owners and operators in understanding potential climate change threats and in assessing the related risks at their individual utilities.
Environmental Justice Screening (EJSCREEN) is a mapping tool that allows users to create maps and generate detailed reports based on the geographic areas and data sets they choose. EJSCREEN includes data from multiple factors that may affect public and environmental health within a community or region.
The Green Infrastructure Guide helps communities plan and design green infrastructure for multiple environmental, health, social, and economic benefits.
The Equity Assessment Tool provides a series of sample metrics that allow communities to understand their racial disparities and develop analyses and strategies to address those disparities. It was developed as part of the Zero Cities Project, which is a three-year project that supports cities in developing policy plans and strategies to achieve a zero-carbon building sector that centers around racial equity.
The ICLUS project is developing scenarios broadly consistent with global-scale, peer-reviewed storylines of population growth and economic development, which are used by climate change modelers to develop projections of future climate.
This toolkit from the Minnesota Department of Health provides information for local governments and public health professionals about preparing for and responding to extreme heat events. There are multiple other resources on the page to help prepare for extreme heat.
EPA’s National Stormwater Calculator (SWC) is a software application that estimates the annual amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff from a specific site. It is designed to be used by anyone interested in reducing runoff from a property, including site developers, landscape architects, urban planners, and homeowners.
This mapping tool provides easy to access scenarios of projected changes from EPA's Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool for annual total precipitation, annual average temperature, precipitation intensity for the 100-year storm, number of days per year with temperatures above 100 F, and sea-level rise for coastal locations.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have developed a toolkit to provide resources for locally investigating possible mosquito-borne Zika virus transmission. This toolkit is for state and local health department epidemiologists, communication specialists, laboratory professionals and other public health officials. This toolkit contains guidance, sample forms and other resources specific to the epidemiologic aspects of an investigation of possible local transmission of Zika virus.
This tool developed by the Department of Transportation and Center for Disease Control and Prevention provides easy access to data that practitioners can use to examine the health impacts of transportation systems.
The WSIO Tool is an application that enables users to compare watersheds in a user-defined geographic area, using factors of their own choosing. It calculates indices, compares watersheds, and produces results in rank-ordered tables, graphs and maps. Most national datasets require knowledge of advanced GIS skills and software. WSIO transforms these data into simple watershed indicators, and then makes them accessible in a common spreadsheet application (Excel).
The Extreme Heat Toolkit provides information to local governments, health departments, and residents about preparing for and responding to heat events. The toolkit focuses on providing background information, practical guidance, strategies, media releases, talking points, definitions, and useful reference materials on this topic.
The Wisconsin Heat Vulnerability Index uses defined methodology to conduct an analysis of the heat-related vulnerability in the state and in urban areas. This guide outlines their methodology, the indicators they used, and their results.
USEPA Region 5 has developed an interactive mapping tool of twelve types of recyclers and landfills that manage disaster debris. This tool provides information and locations of over 6,000 facilities throughout Region 5 and surrounding states capable of managing different materials which may be found in disaster debris.
USEPA created the Waste Reduction Model (WARM) to help solid waste planners and organizations track and voluntarily report greenhouse gas emissions reductions from several different waste management practices – source reduction, recycling, composting, anaerobic digestion, combustion and landfilling. WARM can be used by state and local governments, solid waste planners, students, small businesses and other organizations interested in the energy and greenhouse gas impacts from materials management decisions.
This tool from the US Department of Transportation helps communities examine both the environmental and economic costs and benefits of alternative fuel and advanced vehicles.
The Alternative Fuel Toolkit provides information about alternative fuels and vehicles and infrastructure planning and funding. The Toolkit also provides implementation guidance, planning calculators, facilitation materials and other resources. This resource was developed in conjunction with a set of national workshops and reflect the latest stakeholder-input and research.
This website offers many tools: fleet footprint calculator, alternative fueling station locator, laws and incentives library for alternative fuels and advanced vehicles, and more. The calculators, interactive maps, and data searches can assist fleets and other transportation decision makers in transitioning to alternative fuels and energy efficient vehicles.
Choose Energy monitors the costs of driving electric vehicles (EVs) compared to traditional vehicles and this webpage displays relevant statistics, trends, and analysis on the topic. While driving an EV results in fuel savings in all 50 states, the webpage provides information on which states are best optimize for EV drivers, which states have the highest potential for EV fuel savings, and the number of EV charging stations in each state. The data is provided by the American Automobile Association, the Department of Energy, and other sources.
This Indiana Department fo Environmental Management fact sheet pulls resources together for local governments and consumers on electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. See the October Workshop section for the resources.
The Low Emission Transport Toolkit supports development planners, technical experts and decision-makers at national and local levels to plan and implement low emission transport systems that support economic growth. Although the resource provides examples from around the globe, many resources are relevant to local governments in the U.S.
This guidebook aims to facilitate understanding and the measurement of the features that promote walkability in urban environments at multiple levels. Instructions for completing neighborhood walkability assessments, a street-level walkability design checklist, a guide for selecting a walkability metric and more are included. The tool offers citywide, neighborhood-based, and block-level indicators, and offers intervention opportunities for each scale. Pedestrians First is designed for practitioners, consultants, government officials and advocates.
This tool developed by the Department of Transportation and Center for Disease Control and Prevention provides easy access to data that practitioners can use to examine the health impacts of transportation systems.
BASINS is a multipurpose environmental analysis system designed to help regional, state, and local agencies perform watershed- and water quality-based studies.
The Handbook provides a framework for considering climate change in water management planning. The handbook guides resource managers and planners with key decision considerations, resources, tools, and decision options to adapt to a changing climate.
This guide from the Extension Disaster Education Network assists communities in starting a program to build community capacity to deal with drought, including how to develop a leadership team, set up the program, and invite community input through workshops.
A software tool to assist drinking water and wastewater utility owners and operators in understanding potential climate change threats and in assessing the related risks at their individual utilities.
This resource from the National Drought Mitigation Center allows users to search for strategies by sector, activity type, scope, location, and resource type. Other sections of the website provide information about drought impacts, planning, and more.
The Green Infrastructure Guide helps communities plan and design green infrastructure for multiple environmental, health, social, and economic benefits.
This resource from FEMA provides an interactive data tool to better understand historical flood risk and potential costs.
The Flood Resilience Checklist is an assessment tool for communities to use to identify opportunities to improve their resilience to future floods through policy and regulatory tools.
GIWiz is an interactive, online information portal that provides communities with quick and easy access to EPA's Green Infrastructure tools and resources.
The ICLUS project is developing scenarios broadly consistent with global-scale, peer-reviewed storylines of population growth and economic development, which are used by climate change modelers to develop projections of future climate.
This toolkit from the Georgetown Climate Center combines legal and policy tools, best and emerging practices, and case studies to support learning and decision-making around managed retreat and climate adaptation.
This collection of resources allows users to better understand current conditions, outlooks, impacts, and more as they relate to drought in their region. Other sections of the website provide further regional resources and research.
EPA’s National Stormwater Calculator (SWC) is a software application that estimates the annual amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff from a specific site. It is designed to be used by anyone interested in reducing runoff from a property, including site developers, landscape architects, urban planners, and homeowners.
This tool is a step-by-step guide and curated list of technical and financial resources for managing flood and stormwater challenges. It provides resources on the fundamentals and language of stormwater and flood management for officials and a way to drill down into key planning and implementation steps for managers and staff.
This mapping tool provides easy to access scenarios of projected changes from EPA's Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool for annual total precipitation, annual average temperature, precipitation intensity for the 100-year storm, number of days per year with temperatures above 100 F, and sea-level rise for coastal locations.
In addition to current worst-case coastal storm surge or inundation scenarios and hurricane strike frequency, this multi-source dataset mapping tool illustrates 100 and 500 year flood plains from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Application "used for single event or long-term simulations of water runoff quantity and quality in primarily urban areas–although there are also many applications that can be used for drainage systems in non-urban areas." "SWMM allows engineers and planners to represent combinations of green infrastructure practices as LID controls to determine their effectiveness in managing runoff."
The WSIO Tool is an application that enables users to compare watersheds in a user-defined geographic area, using factors of their own choosing. It calculates indices, compares watersheds, and produces results in rank-ordered tables, graphs and maps. Most national datasets require knowledge of advanced GIS skills and software. WSIO transforms these data into simple watershed indicators, and then makes them accessible in a common spreadsheet application (Excel).
