Field Trip and Project in Mexico: Spring Break 2003

Mexico is full of contradictions. The most noticeable is the lavish wealth next to miserable poverty, the people’s desire to be modern but ambivalent about change, and the beautiful craftsmanship of food and art in the context of half-finished, disheveled buildings

The State of Climate Action Planning in California

The State of Climate Action Planning in Californi

Global changes, local impacts: California\u27s adaptation tools help its cities address climate change

The State of California has been changing state-level policies and legislation to prepare for and minimize the impacts of climate change. But how can local governments integrate climate adaptation planning into local policy and practice? Through three-case studies, Boswell and Read discuss how state agencies and the robust set of tools and guidance in the California Adaptation Planning Guide have been helping California communities in climate action planning

Harmonizing Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Transportation and Land-Use Planning in California Cities

Abstract: Recent extreme weather events in California—wildfires, drought, and flooding—make abundantly clear the need to plan effective responses to both the causes and the consequences of climate change. A central challenge for climate planning efforts has been identifying transportation and land-use (TLU) strategies that simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions (“mitigation”) and adapt communities so that they will be less affected by the adverse impacts of climate change (“adaptation”). Sets of policies that collectively address both mitigation and adaptation are known as “integrated actions.” This study explores municipal climate planning in California to determine whether cities incorporate integrated actions into their plans, assess the potential drivers of conflict between mitigation and adaptation in municipal plans, and identify ways the State of California can help cities more effectively incorporate integrated actions. The study methods consisted of a detailed analysis of climate planning documents from 23 California cities with particularly long histories of climate planning, plus interviews with 25 local, regional, and state officials who work on municipal climate planning. The authors found that some cities did adopt packages of integrated actions, and, promisingly, two cities with recently updated climate plans explicitly focused on the need for integrated actions. However, most cities addressed climate mitigation and adaptation in separate efforts, potentially reducing synergies between the two types of action and even creating conflicts. Since the first generation of climate action plans focused primarily on mitigation of greenhouse gases (GHGs), adaptation strategies have not yet been effectively or fully combined into mitigation plans in many cities. Also, a cross-comparison of plan content and interview data suggests that cities often had sets of policies that could potentially create conflicts—mitigation policies that would undermine adaptation capacity, and vice versa. In addition, where a city did adopt integrated actions, these efforts are typically not labeled as such, nor do the policies appear within the same policy document. The study findings suggest promising steps that both municipal and state governments can take to support integrated TLU actions at the local level. For example, cities can proactively link the content in climate mitigation and adaptation plans—a process that will require building the capacity for cross-collaboration between the various departments in charge of developing, implementing, and monitoring climate-related plans. As for the state government, it can provide funding specifically for planning and implementing integrated actions, offer technical support to help municipalities adopt programs and projects that produce integrated mitigation and adaptation benefits, and fund research in the area of integrated actions

Stormwater Quality and Local Government Innovation

Local governments need innovative practices to address nonpoint source pollution, which has proven to be the Achilles heel of efforts to improve surface water quality in the United States. Studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that 45% of assessed lakes and 39% of assessed rivers in the nation are polluted, and that agricultural and urban runoff were the primary sources of these problems (EPA, 2000, 2002). New approaches to address runoff are clearly necessary, and their success will depend on local government practices, yet we know little about how and why local governments innovate, particularly in response to a federal mandate. Thus in this article, we study innovation by Kansas local governments responding to Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater program, a direct effort to spur new activities by local governments. This Clean Water Act program addresses urban runoff pollution by requiring localities with small municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s) to develop plans and adopt best management practices (BMPs) in six areas, called minimum control measures (MCMs). Local governments that meet established criteria then receive permits allowing them to continue to discharge stormwater runoff into U.S. waters. This program represents a new approach to addressing nonpoint source pollution in the United States.1 Because the NPDES Phase II stormwater program allows flexibility in how MS4s respond, local governments can satisfy the six MCMs with existing activities. In previous research we analyzed Phase II compliance (White & Boswell, 2006), but not the extent to which Phase II led local governments to adopt new practices as opposed to relying on activities already in place. We aim in this paper to identify the degree to which this mandate produced new activities, whether communities that adopted most of their stormwater BMPs prior to the Phase II planning deadline differ from those that adopted them in response to the mandate (after the deadline), and the possible links between innovation and stormwater management plan quality

Local Policy Scan on Climate Change Adaptation

The Climate Change Adaptation Policy Scan provides a snapshot of the current state of community-level activities in the United States and Canada for addressing climate change impacts on public health. The report was developed using a combination of literature review, expert interviews, and case studies to identify best practices, common challenges, and keys to success. This report is intended to be useful to public health officials and community organizations; city and county public agencies, especially those involved in city planning and sustainability; and scholars in these fields. The information provided for the emerging area of climate adaptation policy development is organized into four areas. The first two topic areas, Climate Change and Public Health and Strategies for Responding to Climate Change, summarize the information gathered from literature, expert interviews, and case studies. The third area, Background Research, details the three data sources used to develop the report, and the fourth area, Research Method, describes the data collection process