Adaptation and Resilience

Overview

The world is already experiencing irreversible effects of climate change. Higher temperatures have had—and will continue to have-–significant implications for every country, from sea level rise to more frequent and intense extreme weather. Some level of continued warming and increased extreme weather events are unavoidable as the climate system adjusts to existing greenhouse gas levels. Adaptation and resilience measures are critical to address the current, locked-in, and likely future impacts of climate change.

Climate impacts are already taking an economic and human toll. Weather and climate disasters have cost the United States $2.9 trillion and taken nearly 17,000 lives from 1980 to 2024. In the next decades, climate-related disasters are expected to cause $12.5 trillion in economic losses, displace 216 million people, and take 14.5 million lives globally by 2050. Though these disasters are not entirely due to climate change, they are being worsened by its effects. Anticipating and preparing for these threats to infrastructure, economies, health, and human lives and livelihoods by adopting climate adaptation and resilience measures can help communities avoid the worst of climate change.

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What Are Adaptation and Resilience?

Climate adaptation refers to adjusting to the current and expected impacts of climate change. It can apply to habitats, but also to societies and economies. Adaptation usually involves taking actions to prepare for the harmful effects of climate change-induced events such as rising sea levels and more frequent and intense extreme weather, but it can also mean preparing communities to benefit from climate change opportunities. Investments in adaptation can yield significant economic and social benefits, including reduced home and infrastructure damage, new jobs (up to 280 million globally by 2035), improved health and wellbeing, and environmental benefits like improved biodiversity, water management, and air quality. Adaptation is also cost effective—the World Resources Institute found that every $1 invested in adaptation leads to over $10.50 worth of benefits over 10 years.

Resilience is the ability of a system to absorb, withstand, and bounce back after an adverse event. While adaptation measures are generally actions, resilience—a complementary but distinct concept—is more of a state of being. Making a system climate-resilient generally requires system-wide, multi-dimensional changes that are forward-looking and build long-term capacity. Climate resilience includes policies, infrastructure, services, transportation systems, energy systems, and planning that position communities to prepare for and respond to the impacts of climate change. Communities that plan with resilience in mind are better able to adapt and thrive in the face of a changing climate. For the communities that are most vulnerable to climate impacts, planning for resilience can prevent displacement and reduce devastating financial losses and fatalities.

Climate Threats Requiring Adaptation and Resilience

Climate change is elevating the risk of numerous weather and climate events. From acute threats like floods and heat waves to slow onset events like sea level rise and droughts, adaptation and resilience strategies are necessary to reduce the risks. This table outlines weather and climate events that the United States must adapt and become resilient to.

Planning and Warning Solutions

Adaptation and resilience can be built into policy and planning for governments, companies, organizations, and communities. Integrating adaptation into master plans rather than treating it as a separate concern, often referred to as “mainstreaming” adaptation, ensures that plans and policies are sustainable and resilient to climate impacts. It encourages efficient use of time, resources, and money while also reducing risk and vulnerability. Adaptation mainstreaming is particularly relevant for disaster planning. An adaptation mindset emphasizes pre-disaster mitigation to proactively minimize losses from disasters. When disasters do strike, recovery can present an opportunity to build resilience. However, in reality, the pressure to return to normalcy often results in maladaptive, costly, and risky rebuilding—which is why preparedness is critical.

For example, heat response plans are gaining momentum to minimize risk due to extreme heat, which is becoming more frequent and intense across the country. California has an $800-million Extreme Heat Action Plan that seeks to protect Californians against extreme heat, for instance by setting up community cooling centers. Phoenix, Arizona, has a Heat Response Plan that is updated annually. Part of the plan focuses on first responders who treat severe heat illness. They have developed an innovative cold-water immersion technique to treat people as soon as the first responders arrive on scene instead of waiting to cool the patient at a hospital—a new approach that is saving lives.

Early-warning systems for weather-related disasters are also critical pre-disaster mitigation measures because alerts just 24 hours beforehand can reduce damage by 30% and reduce mortality rates by eight times. FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System is a national alerting system that can communicate an emergency alert to relevant public audiences via radio, television, cell phone, and other means. It supports other early-warning systems like the Emergency Alert System, Wireless Emergency Alert, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Weather Radio All Hazards. Other disaster-specific alerts include FEMA’s tornado sirens in rural communities and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Flood Early Warning System.

Engineered Solutions

There are three general categories of building adaptation and resilience to climate impacts in infrastructure: armoring, accommodating, and relocating.

Armoring: Armoring (or protection) involves engineering structures or other measures to physically defend infrastructure or resources from hazards like floods and wildfires. Armoring can be “hard” using engineered solutions like storm surge gates to protect against flooding, or “soft,” using nature-based ones like horizontal levees to protect against sea-level rise.

Accommodating: In contrast to armoring, which does not modify the structures being protected, accommodating strategies modify existing infrastructure or design new developments to protect against hazards. Examples include wet floodproofing, dry floodproofing, elevating structures, and using more resilient materials like fireproofed roof tiles.

Relocation: Armoring or accommodating infrastructure is sometimes not enough to protect it against hazards. Relocation (also known as managed retreat) involves moving people, homes, or infrastructure away from disaster-prone areas. Several federal programs support relocation efforts, including FEMA’s Assistance for Housing and Other Needs, the U.S. Small Business Administration’s low-interest disaster loans, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Disaster Assistance Programs covering crop losses to farm loans, and the programs run by Administration for Children & Families’ Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness and Response. Relocation efforts, especially large-scale community relocations, must be well-planned to avoid unintentionally exacerbating economic, environmental, and social inequalities. Understanding different places as either vulnerable regions, recipient communities that serve as unwilling or unprepared refuges, or climate destinations welcoming displaced victims of climate disasters can help governments understand the impacts of migration and potential policy pathways to ensure equitable and inclusive outcomes.

Nature-Based Solutions

As the climate changes, nature needs to adapt itself. At the same time, nature can help humans adapt and can help make human infrastructure more resilient. Nature-based solutions involve restoring or emulating nature in order to increase human, ecosystem, and infrastructure resilience to climate impacts. Nature-based solutions have a smaller carbon footprint than gray infrastructure and often sequester carbon. Nature-based solutions can be applied in many different sectors.

Urban Nature-Based Solutions

Green infrastructure—including urban green spaces, green roofs, and bioswales—helps cities adapt to climate change effects like extreme heat and flooding. In cities, urban green spaces offer vital cooling by providing shade and absorbing heat, helping cities deal with the urban heat island effect and adapt to episodes of extreme heat. Beyond that, trees and other plants can also be used to make green roofs in cities, which help reduce flooding by collecting 40 to 80% of the precipitation that falls on the roof and reduces the roof’s surface temperature by up to 56°F. Simulations suggest that widespread green roofs could reduce citywide temperatures by up to 5° F. Bioswales are vegetated, sloped trenches near roads in urban spaces. They capture, filter, and store stormwater runoff, helping cities become more resilient to pluvial floods.

Coastal Nature-Based Solutions

Coastal nature-based solutions can mitigate flood and storm damage more effectively than gray infrastructure alone, and are often more resilient. Natural buffers like wetlands, mangroves, marshes, and oyster reefs, and living shoreline installations help reduce wave impacts during storms, trap sediment, and reduce erosion. Many of these nature-based solutions are cost effective both in terms of deployment and infrastructure loss avoidance. Deploying living shorelines, for instance, is cheaper than building bulkheads (the former cost up to $2,000 per linear foot, versus up to $5,000 for the latter). As for loss avoidance, coastal wetlands alone are estimated to provide $23.2 billion in storm protection annually.

Agricultural Nature-Based Solutions

Agriculture is one of the prime sectors where nature-based solutions can be implemented. Cover crops can help farms be more resilient to climate impacts by increasing the soil’s ability to both absorb intense rain and hold onto moisture—ultimately making crops more resilient to drought, high heat, heavy downpours, and flooding. Agroforestry, or adding trees to farms, can improve the resilience of both crop production and livestock systems. Windbreaks and alley cropping shield plants from high winds and extreme weather events. Trees planted for silvopasture reduce heat stress for livestock, increase wildlife diversity, and improve water quality. Riparian forest buffers protect water quality as trees help prevent pesticides, sediment, and other agricultural pollutants from entering the water. Soil amendments like biochar and compost can help build resilience as they improve the water-holding capacity and filtration ability of soil so that it can better withstand drought, heat waves, and heavy rains. They also improve overall soil health and biodiversity, resulting in healthier crops that are more resistant to disease and pests. Integrating prairies into agriculture through prairie strips is another way to boost ecosystem resilience. Converting 10% of row-cropped fields into prairie land—filled with native, perennial plants—dramatically improves soil health, water quality, and biodiversity and reduces erosion.

Adaptation and Mitigation Win-Wins

Solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation are not mutually exclusive. From the agricultural sector to climate-smart buildings to coastal wetlands, there are many available solutions that provide adaptation and resilience benefits while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. One example of an adaptation-mitigation solution is expanding renewable energy-powered decentralized grids. These grids both reduce emissions and boost resilience to climate impacts compared to fossil fuel-based centralized grids. Such grids can initially be implemented on a small scale—for example, a hospital can set up a renewable energy-powered microgrid with battery storage to help its critical infrastructure continue to operate even in emergency situations, all while reducing emissions. Electric vehicles are also a mitigation and adaptation win-win, helping to reduce emissions while also being able to provide energy to the grid in the event of a power outage.

Climate adaptation solutions offer significant, multifaceted co-benefits that extend far beyond reducing vulnerability to climate change. In a world of limited climate finance and capacity, prioritizing these solutions can be a cost-effective way to help communities prevent risk while also becoming more resilient to it. A 2025 study by the World Resources Institute found that each dollar spent on adaptation and resilience yields over $10 in benefits over 10 years. Climate adaptation solutions can also help generate jobs, create stronger economies, and improve public health. From planning and warning systems to engineered and nature-based solutions, adaptation measures are a win-win-win that avoid future losses, stimulate economic growth, and generate social and environmental benefits.