Options Database

Encourage homeowner association policies to clean up debris before expected wind events (e.g., hurricanes).

Encourage landlords and residents to consult flood management professionals about how to prepare for and manage flood and stormwater effects.

Encourage landowners to monitor and protect water quality in private wells.

Encourage local businesses to benchmark, disclose, and reduce energy use in their buildings. Consider creating a city- sponsored recognition program for businesses who conserve energy.

Encourage local government departments and local employers to offer remote work during extreme weather events to make economic activity and critical services less vulnerable to disruption.

Encourage local utilities to collaborate with adjacent landowners to reduce flammable vegetation and wildland fire risk along transmission lines and near critical infrastructure. Include efforts to increase defensible space around facilities and buildings.

Encourage local utilities to upgrade infrastructure with fire-resistant materials and enhance fire protection and response equipment and capability at the utility plant.

Encourage nonprofits to hold land conservation easements. Encourage them to use those easements in ways that help manage climate change impacts.

Encourage residents and staff to report maintenance needs in the easements of power lines (e.g., clearing woody plants) to utilities to help prevent wildfires.

Encourage residents to avoid unnecessary energy use at peak times during extreme hot or extreme cold temperatures.

Encourage residents to develop a household evacuation plan to prepare for floods.

Encourage residents to re-establish natural floodplains.

Encourage soil management and planting and growing techniques that improve soil and plant health in response to climate change.

Encourage the breeding of livestock animals and adoption of crops that are better adapted to warmer temperatures and greater precipitation variability.

Encourage the business and industrial communities to review standard operating procedures for how to handle abnormal high-wind conditions with drivers of high-profile vehicles.

Encourage the installation of graywater systems for water reuse.

Encourage the involvement of residents in the planning process and ensure coordination between communities and jurisdictions to reconcile conflicts. Advance the understanding by citizens of the implications of climate so they are informed stakeholders and can plan for future accordingly.

Encourage the use of natural bank stabilization techniques.

Encourage the use of rain gardens, vegetation, landscaping, or other techniques that can “Soak Up the Rain” and manage stormwater runoff.

Encourage the use of a splash block made of stone or other hard material to direct runoff and minimize the potential for erosion.