Inclusive Planning to support Smart Growth with the Equitable Resilience Builder Tool

Equitable resilience describes the capacity to withstand, respond, adapt, and transform in the face of climate change and disasters in ways that are culturally appropriate, participatory, and enhances the resilience of the community, not just individual resilience. The EPA has developed an Equitable Resilience Builder (ERB) application to support communities in resilience planning with a focus on equity. The tool provides a guide to inclusively assess local hazards, equity, and the resilience of built, natural, and social environment systems. On August 13th, join speakers who developed the ERB tool to learn about how it works and how it can be applied to resilience planning in your community.

Impact/Purpose

Climate change presents cascading and compounding threats to low-income and underrepresented communities, increasing the need for equitable resilience planning. However, many local governments face challenges incorporating community voices with resilience and vulnerability data in planning processes. Our research team created the Equitable Resilience Builder (ERB) tool to address these challenges. This is a presentation of the ERB tool to professional planners and developers in Maryland via the Smart Growth Network webinar series. The goal of this presentation is to present and demo the ERB tool to professionals for their awareness and feedback. Use of this tool by developers throughout the US can improve the inclusion of communities in resilience planning with the potential to increase equity in many climate change adaptation actions. 

Citation

Matsler, M., R. Nee, K. Maxwell, E. Eisenhauer, B. Kiessling, S. Julius, M. Fry, L. Oliver, M. Shacklette, AND S. Henson. Inclusive Planning to support Smart Growth with the Equitable Resilience Builder Tool. Maryland Smart Growth Network Webinar Series, N/A, MD, August 13, 2024.