Florida Adaptation Planning Guidebook
APTIM provided award-winning guidance to Florida municipalities to reduce physical risks associated with climate change, along with metrics-driven and resilient adaptation plans.
Our coastal resilience experts updated the Florida Adaptation Planning Guidebook and supported grants planning for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), earning Climate Change Business Journal’s Advancing Best Practices: Coastal Resilience award. Project accomplishments include:
- Revised adaptation planning guidebook to reflect current best practices and funding opportunities under Resilient Florida Grant Program
- Engaged 300+ stakeholders in virtual workshops, integrating their feedback into the updated guidebook
- Provided communities with practical tools to enhance their adaptation planning efforts against natural hazards (e.g., hurricanes, intense rainfall, storm surge, and compound flooding) and changing climate (e.g., sea level rise)
- Developed a matrix of 30+ adaptation strategies and their relative costs
- Presented 50+ funding stream resources (e.g., FEMA-BRIC, HMGP, USACE, and HUD) corresponding with adaptation strategies
Project History
This initiative aimed to revise the Florida Adaptation Planning Guidebook by incorporating the most recent and best available information, advanced research methods, and lessons learned from practitioners. With every $1 invested in hazard mitigation efforts yielding up to $11 in societal savings through federal mitigation grants, the tools provided by APTIM in this guidebook can deliver significant, scalable cost savings for Florida communities.
The project involved extensive stakeholder collaboration through virtual workshops and interviews, and iterative feedback processes. By establishing emerging best practices, such as setting short-, medium- and long-term community adaptation goals to apply for targeted grants, the guidebook aims to serve as an essential resource for communities pursuing funding and implementing resilient solutions.
As part of this project, APTIM has developed a list of acceptable tasks and their corresponding deliverables for projects allowable for Resilient Florida Grant Program funding pursuant to s. 380.093(3)(b), F.S. This comprehensive list of activities and tasks provides guidance to FDEP for enhancing the Resilient Florida Grant Work Plan by including tasks related to adaptation plan development. It also equips communities with a broader range of project options for grant applications, along with a clear framework for deliverables to streamline the funding process.
Services Provided
- Research & Development
- Adaptation Roadmapping
- Stakeholder & Community Engagement
- Grant Work Plan Development
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