Resilient NJ: Local Planning for Climate Change Toolkit

New Jersey

Michael Baker International assisted the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection launch the Resilient NJ: Local Planning for Climate Change Toolkit. It provides valuable resources for developing community-specific, science-based strategies and actions that will protect homes, businesses, critical infrastructure and natural resources.

The Resilient NJ toolkit has been incorporated into the suite of tools offered by the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit—a website designed to help citizens find and use tools, information and subject matter expertise to build climate resilience across the U.S. federal government. It is made available through an inter-agency initiative under the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which is composed of 13 federal agencies.

The Resilient NJ toolkit guides New Jersey municipalities through the process of creating a climate change-related vulnerability assessment, a robust public engagement process that includes accessing the needs and integrating the voices of socially vulnerable populations and developing local climate resilience strategies as required by changes to New Jersey’s Municipal Land Use Law.

This toolkit contains guidance and worksheets to help communities integrate equity considerations into their local climate resilience planning and meet the needs of the entire community to ensure that the resilience measures identified are equitable in their consideration and impact. The intended outcome is the creation of local strategies with specific resilience actions tailored to each community’s needs. Strategies may include enhanced building and construction standards; retrofitting, elevating, or replacing existing structures and infrastructure; construction of more resilient structures and infrastructure; and many other potential actions.

The toolkit builds upon numerous climate change resilience initiatives, including the 2021 release of the New Jersey Draft Climate Change Resilience Strategy and the 2020 release of the New Jersey Scientific Report on Climate Change, which won a Notable Document Award by the National Conference of State Legislatures.