Richton Park to serve as pilot community for NOAA grant to help address climate extremes

Press release from the American Planning Association

APA Receives $300K NOAA Grant to Help Communities Address Climate Extremes The City of Berwyn and the Village of Richton Park, Illinois, will serve as two of the pilot communities.

The American Planning Association (APA) received a $300,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Program Office to assist communities in addressing potential climate extremes such as high precipitation in a short period of time or extreme drought. APA will work on the two-year contract with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), and climatologists from the University of Illinois and the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Consortium.

The project, “Incorporating Local Science to Help Communities Plan for Climate Extremes” will help communities in the Great Lakes region incorporate available climate data into comprehensive and capital improvement plans. Very few communities currently use climate data as a way to prepare for potential consequences experienced from extreme climate events.

“Communities can better prepare themselves to weather the flux of climate extremes that are becoming more frequent,” said James C. Schwab, FAICP, manager of APA Hazards Planning Center. “Knowing how to incorporate and use climate data in planning initiatives will make communities more resilient to disasters, speed up the recovery from such disasters, and reduce the economic impact of such disasters.”

The core of the research project will focus on five Chicago-metropolitan pilot communities. Planners and climatologists will work with the pilot communities to incorporate climate data into planning efforts, identify trustworthy climate resources and create guidelines that other communities can utilize. The City of Berwyn and the Village of Richton Park are two of the five pilot communities. The final three pilot communities will be identified by mid-September…Please click here to read the APA’s full press release. Related story are here in the Southland Voice and here in the Tribune/Daily Southtown.