Across South Central Texas, communities and organizations are beginning to build resilience against extreme heat, wildfires, and flooding. While many of these initiatives are making an impact locally, they are constrained by silos or limited reach. Breaking down those silos and coordinating across the region will help resilience efforts reach more communities faster and more effectively. In a constrained funding environment, and with a potentially record-breaking El Niño on the way, regional collaboration offers an opportunity to unlock and accelerate community preparedness and collectively manage risk in South Central Texas.
The opportunity to join forces and safeguard communities and businesses across the region framed the Resources Connector Forum that C2ES hosted on May 5th in Austin, which marked the second convening of the South Central Texas Accelerator. The Forum brought together over 50 leaders from local governments, private businesses, nonprofits, philanthropy, academia, and community organizations to hear insights from experts on stacking resources and developing public-private partnerships, and to highlight key opportunities to connect and expand efforts that strengthen regional resilience to extreme heat, wildfire, and flooding.
Participants capped the day by developing regional resilience strategies for six key action areas: infrastructure and public services, communications and education, disaster preparedness, nature-based solutions, housing, and regionally aligned leadership. Through collaboration, participants identified, prioritized, and built out the following resilience strategies for the region:
- Implement reliable backup systems and update building codes to ensure continuity of critical services during extreme events.
- Establish a coordinated regional resilience communications network that delivers a tailored but unified messaging toolkit.
- Develop a regional “network of networks” for disaster preparedness communication and education.
- Advance riparian and natural area restoration that uses a regional watershed approach to identify and prioritize scaled and multi-benefit nature-based projects and improvements.
- Develop an integrated resilient home hardening initiative across the region that includes ongoing maintenance and workforce development.
- Develop a coalition/governance structure for regional resilience coordination, research, and data sharing across jurisdictions.
Emerging Priorities for Regional Resilience to Heat, Wildfire, and Flooding
The event surfaced several takeaways that participants built into action plans which will shape the next steps for the Accelerator:
- Nonfinancial resources are a force multiplier. While funding for resilience efforts is a critical ingredient for success, nonfinancial resources are also a key factor for growing and strengthening these initiatives. Participants shared examples and best practices of academic partnerships that bring tools, data, networks, and experts to community efforts; philanthropic supporters who deliver strategic advice and connections; local governments that provide facilities or policy alignment; and companies which share tools and expertise to help resilience strategies get off the ground, scale, and succeed.
- Framing and communications matter. Participants emphasized that resilience cuts across issues and sectors, including public health and economic development. This crosscutting nature creates opportunities for resilience projects to access funding, build partnerships, and achieve results beyond climate- or resilience-specific programs. Coordinated communication can help implementers escape silos and bolster the impact of disaster preparedness, data sharing, and education across the region.
- Key resilience strategies will depend on increasing public-private partnerships (P3s) across the region. Speakers during the day highlighted specific expertise that sectors like insurance, construction, and tech can provide, and existing models the region can draw on. For strategies like weatherizing homes, strengthening the resilience of critical energy and water infrastructure, and developing wide-reaching, actionable communications before, during, and after disasters, collaboration with the private sector will bring the expertise and capacity needed to enable implementation at scale across the region.
From Planning to Implementation
Throughout the day, Accelerator participants underscored that existing ad-hoc resilience efforts in South Central Texas could be supercharged by cross-sector coordination across the region. In the coming months, C2ES will continue to engage stakeholders to deepen the action plans drafted at the Forum, and to publish a Regional Action Roadmap–C2ES recently released one for Washington’s South-Central Puget Sound Accelerator–that details how communities and businesses throughout South Central Texas can collaborate to mitigate the impacts of flooding, wildfires, and extreme heat. The Resilience Roadmap will also chart the course for Year 2 of the Accelerator, when participants will reconvene to implement the resilience strategies that are ripest for regional collaboration. To learn more about the South Central Texas Accelerator, visit the C2ES Climate Resilient Communities Accelerator webpage.