Resilience Resource Hub

Providing resources to assist drinking water and wastewater utilities in achieving resiliency.

Click on the below topics or scroll down for resources and upcoming webinars. If you need technical assistance or do not know where to start, please reach out to us via resiliency@des.nh.gov or by using the contact information below. If you have any resources to add or if you have used any of the below tools and have any comments, let us know how we can improve our list.

Tools

Resilient Strategies Guide - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created a free introductory tool for a basic understanding of potential climate change risks and the adaptation planning process, useful for smaller water utilities. Utilities can use the guide to identify their planning priorities, vulnerable assets, potential adaptation strategies, and available funding sources.
Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool (CREAT) - EPA’s tool assists water utilities in assessing climate-related risks to utility assets and operations. Begin by following new user instructions to request a secure login to use this tool.
Climate Risk and Resilience Portal (ClimRR) - Argonne National Lab provides local climate projections, climate data maps, and data catalogs including layers to import to GIS. A data catalog guide is available with instructions to import this data using GIS software.
Creating Resilient Water Utilities Initiative (CRWU) - EPA’s CRWU initiative provides drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities with practical tools, training, data, and technical assistance to increase system resilience to climate change impacts. Maps for climate projections, storm surge, streamflow, and snowpack are available on this page. This page also links users to the CREAT and Resilient Strategies Guide.
U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit - This federal toolkit from the US Global Change Research Program provides an overview of the Steps to Resilience, case studies, future projections, webinars on the latest National Climate Assessment, and a Ready-to-Fund Resilience Toolkit.
Vulnerability Self-Assessment Tool (VSAT) - This tool is intended to help larger community water and wastewater systems develop a risk and resilience assessment. This resource helps facilities meet the requirements of America’s Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) Section 2013.
Small Systems Resilience Checklist - This guidance helps small community water systems address risks associated with natural hazards and malevolent acts, and helps facilities comply with the requirements for risk and resilience assessments under AWIA Section 2013.

Webinars and Recordings

Building Resilience to Climate Change for Water Utilities in the Northeast - View this webinar anytime from EPA. The recording provides information on the impacts of environmental conditions and extreme weather on drinking water, wastewater, and storm water utilities.
CREAT Training Videos - A collection of videos is available to view anytime for more information on EPA’s CREAT tool and how to complete its modules.

Flooding-Specific Resources

National Flood Hazard Layer (NHFL) - Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) NHFL viewer can be used to download or print current flood maps. Users can search an address or use the map navigation to locate an area of interest and the NFHL Print Tool to download and print a full Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) or FIRMette (a smaller, printable version of a FIRM) where modernized data exists. Technical GIS users can also utilize a series of dedicated GIS web services that allow the NFHL database to be incorporated into websites and GIS applications.
Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) Floodplain Determination Job Aid - This federal guide from the National Climate Task Force Flood Resilience Interagency Working Group explains the executive order on FFRMS, approaches to determine the FFRMS floodplain, and an 8-step process for federally funded actions in or impacting a floodplain.
New Hampshire Floodplain Management Program - This StoryMap explains the role of the New Hampshire Floodplain Management Program, with FEMA, to administer the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in New Hampshire. They provide technical assistance and training to local communities about the NFIP, floodplain management, and flood and encourage communities to adopt sensible floodplain development practices.
Floodplain Mapping - This page features information about FEMA's floodplain mapping activities currently underway in New Hampshire including the RiskMAP process to update flood maps, projects for specific watersheds, and hazard data viewers.
Water and Wastewater Utility Flood Resilience - This page from EPA includes a guide, fact sheet, checklist and overview video. The guide includes flood maps and videos to guide users to protect critical assets of small and medium drinking water and wastewater utilities.

Drought-Specific Resources

Drought Response and Recovery: A Basic Guide for Water Utilities - EPA’s guide on drought response and recovery provides worksheets, best practices, videos, and key resources for responding to drought emergencies and building long-term resilience. The guide relays lessons learned from nine small- to medium-sized utilities nationwide that have responded to extreme drought conditions.

Coastal Mapping and Related Resources

Coastal Floodplain Mapping, Regulations and Resiliency Resources - This page provides information about coastal floodplain mapping, regulations and resiliency in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire Flood Hazards Handbook: A Guide for Municipal Officials - This guide features the state’s flood risk management priorities and provide technical expertise to help reduce flood risk in New Hampshire communities. A customizable Flood Response and Recovery Checklist can be used by community officials to identify and manage priority activities during a flood event.

Design-Specific Resources

2016 Wastewater Guide on Preparing for Extreme Weather at Wastewater Utilities: Strategies and Tips - New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commissions’ (NEIWPCC) guide provides a description of the central issues and with tips and stories gleaned from the experience of wastewater professionals in the Northeast. Starting with pre-storm planning and ending with post-storm assessment and repair, the focus of this guide is on operations.
Guides for the Design of Wastewater Treatment - NEIWPCC revised its design guide, TR-16, for wastewater facilities to reflect the need to recover from and operate during flooding, power outages, and other extreme weather emergencies. The guide defines critical equipment and offers guidance on backup-power, flood-elevation and related design considerations, and levels of protection for new equipment. It also includes new and revised design considerations and expanded discussions of flooding as an emergency condition and as a consideration when siting wastewater treatment facilities.

Other resources

Drinking Water and Wastewater Resilience - EPA created a central repository for water and wastewater resilience tools, trainings and resources. EPA’s route to resilience includes 6 steps: assess, plan, train, respond, recover and surveillance. Water resilience basics are also explained.
The Climate Explorer - The National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center provides county level climate data, available via graphs and maps.
Federal Funding for Water and Wastewater Utilities in Natural Disasters (FedFUNDS) - FedFUNDS is a page created by EPA, tailored to water and wastewater utilities on federal disaster and mitigation funding programs from federal sources, including EPA, FEMA, and others. Helpful comparison tables for grants and loans provide information on cost share, eligibility, application contacts, and contacts for more information.