April 2022 — The Community Climate Resilience Menu (CCRM) is an online tool for finding resources to support communities’ efforts to become more resilient to the impacts and shocks from major weather changes that disrupt communities. We created the CCRM to provide a flexible approach for community decision-makers to select strategies for each community’s unique environment, culture, and economy.

HOW TO NAVIGATE THE MENU (a quick walkthrough)

From the main menu (shown here below) you may scroll down to find more information about the tool; or you may click any of the links on the right to navigate to resources related to any of the three themes (“menus”) or subsections. Circled below, for example, is the subsection on “Climate and Farm Friendly Food Systems” within the “Agriculture and Food Systems Menu”.

Note: you may click on “Community Climate Resilience Menu” any time to return to the main page. Other thematic “menu” links take you to an overview of that theme with links to the corresponding subsections.

For a subsection example, click “Climate and Farm Friendly Food Systems” (circled above).

All subsections provide an introduction to the topic followed by this “Explore Our Menu” block. This is a series of links (written in blue letters) which, when clicked, open to reveal additional information, ideas, and/or links to relevant resources along with a brief explanation of each.

For example: Click “View Low-Cost Strategies” (circled above) from within the subsection on “Climate and Farm Friendly Food Systems”

Additional content revealed by clicking the “View Low-Cost Strategies” option from within the subsection on “Climate and Farm Friendly Food Systems”.

USING THE MENU:

Who Should Use the Menu?

Local government staff, officials, and others working to support informed decision-making and community initiatives can use the CCRM to quickly find resources that can help in their community’s efforts to become more resilient. Other users may include community leaders and concerned citizens; local and regional planners; legislators; and Cooperative Extension educators who connect people in communities to useful resources and information on many topics.

When Should the Menu be Used?

The Menu encourages exploration of a wide range of community climate resilience strategies by stakeholders involved in agriculture, food systems, built and natural environments, or energy efficiency and renewables. It can provide reminders of climate impacts and resilience strategies to be considered — amid ongoing planning and decision-making. The Menu also helps communities identify equitable policies and programs that may need to be structured to garner perspectives among diverse groups of people.

Why Use the Menu?

Various emergency management plans, regional comprehensive economic development strategy (CEDS) plans, local comprehensive plans, and capital improvement plans (CIPs) are some of the arenas where the Menu can help advance specific action to build climate resilience. decisive action. Identifying foreseeable issues and including suitable strategies in local plans can strengthen those plans for their own purposes and serve to enhance community capacity to pursue investments that make a community more resilient.

Explore Our Menus

The Community Resilience Menu is divided into three menus – (1) Agriculture & Local Food Systems, (2) Built & Natural Environment, and (3) Energy Efficiency & Renewables. Each menu follows a similar format with important definitions and detailed explanations and a series of strategies communities can pursue to become more resilient.