Ä¢¹½´«Ã½

This survey-based study provides a comprehensive outlook and data baseline on climate resilience in Massachusetts from the point of view of municipalities. Disseminated to all of Massachusetts’ 351 municipalities in August-October 2021, the survey received responses from 111 municipalities. This study is part of the local engagement activities of the Northeast Center for Coastal Resilience (NCCR), a knowledge hub involving campuses of the University of Massachusetts system. The results of the survey will be used to align the hub mission, research activities, and deliverables with the actual regional needs of municipalities, planning agencies, decision makers, and practitioners. The research team will continue monitoring the resilience indicators collected in this baseline study in subsequent studies.

The study finds that there remains significant hurdles to address resilience gaps among marginalized groups. Equitable resilience and adaptation planning requires reliable data to monitor climate impacts on vulnerable groups but less than 30% of municipalities seem to have access to reliable socio-economic indicators. A majority (89%) of respondents indicated that climate adaptation and resilience planning are a priority in the planning documents of their municipality and 80% have completed a vulnerability/risk assessment. Barriers exist, however, that hinder or slow the implementation of resilience recovery strategies including constraints on municipal resources,  coordination and governance failures, and difficulties in accessing data. To facilitate and accelerate the implementation of climate resilience strategies, much data is needed. Economic evaluations of climate change impacts (89%) and local CO2 emissions data (59%) are the two types of data most frequently indicated as needed but not easily accessible. Meanwhile, expert assistance, tools, and metrics to monitor impacts of climate change at the local level are among the resources most frequently selected (especially by cities) as most helpful to make progress toward climate adaptation.