Climate Resilient Floodplains: Bringing climate science into project design

Floodplains are home to a wide range of economic, cultural, and natural resources. Recent efforts have emphasized collaborative decision-making across multiple floodplain interests, as well as a more holistic perspective on watershed-scale planning. Although there is a strong desire to include climate change into these planning efforts, very little guidance has been developed to help incorporate climate impacts into risk assessments and project design. This is further complicated by the fact that context matters: different locations do not necessarily have the same vulnerabilities, nor the same options for responding. This presentation will summarize recent and ongoing efforts aimed at better understanding the impacts of climate change on floodplains. These include: (1) new research evaluating changes in precipitation, sea level rise, and flooding; (2) lessons from recent conversations, interviews, and interactions with floodplain managers, tribes, agricultural producers, and stormwater professionals in Puget Sound; and (3) scientist-stakeholder collaborations aimed at incorporating climate change into project design