Browse RAND publications on climate resilience.
Climate hazards adversely affect the physical environment in which the U.S. Department of Defense must operate, thereby adversely affecting the performance of the joint force. Acknowledging that climate effects will likely become more severe as global temperatures rise, the authors of this report discuss findings from a study they conducted to develop links between climate and force readiness.
Climate models provide one important source of information for adaptation planning, but do not contain all the information available from climate science. Expert elicitation can provide an effective supplement to climate models, as demonstrated at an in-person Climate Information Elicitation Workshop with San Francisco Public Utilities Commission in March 2019 to identify potential climate change impacts on the city's water supply system.
Using electricity system decarbonization as a focus area to highlight the different types of technological solutions, different risks that may be associated with them, and the approaches situated in a decision-making under deep uncertainty paradigm.
As part of the 2023 Coastal Master Plan, the Planning Tool was updated to use more detailed modeling data, including a structure-based asset inventory, and to respond to new CPRA planning priorities.
Nonstructural project results for the 2023 Coastal Master Plan and summarizes the mitigation measures derived from the technical analysis conducted using the Coastal Louisiana Risk Assessment (CLARA) model.
This seasonal climate summary draws from a variety of scientific resources for the benefit of policymakers, practitioners, residents, and community leaders in the Mid-Atlantic region, with a focus on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This edition includes details on winter 2022–2023 weather, regional climate trends, and the upcoming spring season. An interactive tool shows an analysis of how the average number of days per year with cold low temperatures is projected to change in the future.
Some U.S. communities, such as low-income or minority communities, are disproportionately affected by escalating natural disasters. The authors explore initial steps toward a methodology that can be used by the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program to both communicate the pathway to building community resilience in an equitable way and track the program's progress toward participation and success in the BRIC program.
This article investigates how community groups solve collective action problems though data gathered across 25 organizations in three sites—Sitka, Alaska, USA; Toco, Trinidad; and a global site of distributed citizen science organizations.
The authors assessed the greenhouse gas emissions of crop production in California's Westlands Water District and the trade-offs of policies aimed at decarbonization. They provide policy insights and recommendations to local and state decisionmakers.
This report examines how health care delivery systems in receiving communities meet the needs of climate migrants in three case study sites in the US Gulf Coast.
This paper describes a community-level co-design process among academic, state, and federal scientists and the community of Sitka, Alaska to develop a novel landslide warning system for the small coastal town.
The authors assessed the greenhouse gas emissions of crop production in California's Westlands Water District and the trade-offs of policies aimed at decarbonization. They provide policy insights and recommendations to local and state decisionmakers. The authors developed a cross-sectoral model to evaluate emissions and analyzed how resource trade-offs from decarbonization could differ under climate change.
Narratives are a means of making sense of disasters and crises. We identify and characterise narratives in humanitarian communications involving Indigenous Peoples by conducting a narrative analysis of humanitarian communications.
The purpose of this study is to understand the experiences of climate change related migrants. To do so we draw on focus group discussions with Puerto Ricans in South and Central Florida displaced by 2017 Hurricane Maria.
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) installations have been affected by extreme weather events, which are likely to increase in frequency and severity because of climate change. DoD sets priorities for investing in installation resilience to adapt to these climate hazards. This report focuses on assessing methods that compare the damage costs resulting from extreme weather events against the costs of enhancing installation resilience.
Research conducted within RAND Project AIR FORCE for the Department of the Air Force (DAF) and more broadly across RAND offers insights about climate change and its implications for military operations and other contexts. This compilation of multidisciplinary climate research can help answer a variety of questions that are relevant to DAF leaders and other stakeholders as they work to put DAF strategy into action.
This report explores the commonalities between the U.S. and French strategies in the Indo-Pacific; outlines the region's key French military and security cooperation activities, including shared activities with the United States. The author suggests ways that the U.S. Army can further engage France to develop mutually beneficial cooperation activities in the region.
To support the use of models and tools for climate adaptation planning efforts, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment (MARISA) program created the Model Inventory and Selection Tool (MIST). MIST is an interactive, searchable database of empirical, statistical, and conceptual models of natural and human-made systems relevant to water- and climate-related planning and decisionmaking in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and beyond. This revised version contains three new models and provides minor corrections to the database.
Rising global temperatures and the urban heat island effect can amplify heat-related health risks to residents. Cities are considering various heat adaptation actions to improve public health, enhance social equity, and cope with future conditions.
This study examines the factors predicting willingness to move among residents of southeast Louisiana.
This seasonal climate summary draws from a variety of scientific resources for the benefit of policymakers, practitioners, residents, and community leaders in the Mid-Atlantic region, with a focus on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This edition includes details on fall 2022 weather, regional climate trends, and the upcoming winter season. An interactive tool shows an analysis of the longest stretches of dry days and how they are expected to change in the future.
The Climate Hazard and Mitigation Planning online tool is an interactive website designed to: (1) communicate potential vulnerabilities to the public and authorities responsible for allocating resources for hazard mitigation activities; and (2) help local hazard mitigation, infrastructure, and land use planners integrate climate information into their hazard mitigation and other planning efforts.
This seasonal climate summary draws from a variety of scientific resources for the benefit of policymakers, practitioners, residents, and community leaders in the Mid-Atlantic region, with a focus on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This edition includes details on summer 2022 weather, regional climate trends, and the upcoming summer season. An interactive tool shows an analysis of the longest stretches of high heat days and how they are expected to change in the future.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has relied on scientific and technical advice to respond to various threats and hazards. To enhance DHS's ability to leverage science and technology communities to support the use of science, technology, innovation, and analytical capabilities during crisis response, RAND researchers offer a conceptual framework and five imperatives for consideration when providing technical support during a crisis.
This research examines the coproduction of early warning systems linked with response capacities for floods and landslides through the case study of work in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with a focus on nine urban informal settlements with high levels of territorial gang violence.
