Resource Database

The resource database is a comprehensive catalogue of all the materials on the Resilient Connecticut website. Select your Resource Type, Focus Area and/or Town to access a filtered selection of Resilient Connecticut materials.

Type

Focus Area

Town2

Town

MyCoast Connecticut pilot launches in Groton, New London, and Stonington

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Flood and Sea Level Rise

Town:

Focus Area:

Planning

Town:

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

By Steve Glazier, Published September 29, 2025 • Updated on September 29, 2025 at 5:07 pm

This week marks Connecticut’s second annual Sustainability and Resiliency Week. Dozens of events will acknowledge the work to protect Connecticut’s natural resources, communities and economy. Dr. Joanna Wozniak-Brown is a climate policy and planning expert with the state of Connecticut. We asked her what she’s looking forward to during the state’s sustainability and resiliency week. “I can’t pick my favorite. It’d be really hard to pick my favorite," Dr. Wozniak-Brown said. In person, virtual and hybrid events are taking place through Friday, October 3. “The main goal is to make sure people know about the work to protect the environment. It is happening every day, and it’s happening by lots of people," she said.

Wednesday, October 1: UCONN CIRCA Climate Report

NEW BRITAIN — Residents will have the opportunity to hear updates on flood control plans for the Piper Brook and Webster Brook corridor.

State Rep. Gary Turco shared an upcoming open house, scheduled for Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Alvarium Beer Company, 365 John Downey Drive, New Britain. An overview presentation is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m.

The event is part of the Resilient CT Piper Brook and Webster Brook Project, which is connected to the Connecticut Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation (CIRCA) program. The program is designed to develop flood strategies that respond to challenges faced by residents and businesses along the two brooks. The project includes Newington, Berlin and New Britain.

Go to Resource

New Haven continues flood mitigation efforts despite FEMA cuts

Type:

In the Media

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Flood and Sea Level Rise

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

CT Network

Recorded On: 8/11/2025

Learn more about efforts to prepare and protect Connecticut's coastal neighborhoods, beaches, and natural resources by watching this Hurricane Coastal Resiliency Panel Discussion.

Panelist: James O'Donnell

Moderated by Senator Tony Hwang

Discussion held in Fairfield, CT

Go to Resource

Where have FEMA grant programs in CT been cancelled?

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Planning

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

Environmental Justice

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

Publication by CIRCA's research team "A State-Specific Approach for Visualizing Overburdened Communities: Lessons from the Connecticut Environmental Justice Screening Tool 2.0"

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

Shelton Herald and Stamford Advocate By Jayden Nguyen, Staff Writer April 30, 2025 For the last 18 months, Mystic Seaport Museum has been evaluating what parts of its campus to keep — and what it needs to lose — as sea levels rise on Connecticut's shoreline. The seaport museum was featured in The New York Times on April 22 for its efforts to maintain and adapt the museum in the face of rising sea levels. The majority of the Mystic Seaport Museum is located in a FEMA-designated flood zone. It also lies in an "inundated area" along the Mystic River that is likely to be impacted by high waters, according to Connecticut Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation (CIRCA).

Go to Resource

Exploring the future of Connecticut public transit

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Planning

Town:

Town:

Stonington

A Seaport Museum Faces an Unlikely Threat: The Sea Itself

Rising sea levels are forcing the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut to address the long-term sustainability of its campus.

Flood and Sea Level Rise

Town:

Town:

Newington

by Claudia S. Hilario @NEWBRITHERALD, Mar 27, 2025

NEW BRITAIN — Residents of New Britain, Berlin and Newington are encouraged to attend a forum on Wednesday to discuss ways to reduce flooding in high-risk areas.

The meeting will focus on properties along Piper Brook and Webster Brook. Attendees can brainstorm ideas from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Alvarium Beer Co., Room B-side, 365 John Downey Drive in New Britain.

The Connecticut Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation at the University of Connecticut (UCON) is studying the Piper Brook and Webster Brook corridors.

Go to Resource

Reflecting on Progress: CIRCA’s Decade of Increasing Connecticut’s Climate Resilience

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Heat

Town:

Town:

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

By Kevin Gaiss • Published September 25, 2024 • Updated on September 25, 2024 at 5:47 pm

DEEP announced the next phase of their Climate Resiliency Fund and is in the process to gain information from towns.

Connecticut is no stranger to extreme weather. Just last month, an unprecedented deluge of rain devastated towns in parts of western Connecticut. Now, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has announced its next phase of helping towns and cities adapt to inclement weather.

Go to Resource

New London flood prevention plan envisions ‘linear park’ along waterfront

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Flood and Sea Level Rise

Town:

As seas and temperatures rise, the Connecticut Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation uses research and community engagement to protect communities across the state

Between scorching summers and unprecedented storms, the consequences of climate change have crashed down on Connecticut in recent years. Policymakers, urban planners, and resource managers are needing to make decisions with new threats in mind: more extreme weather events, heat, and sea level rise. This last threat is something James O’Donnell, professor of marine sciences and director of the Connecticut Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation (CIRCA) at UConn Avery Point, knows a lot about. A physical oceanographer, his research focuses on circulation and mixing in the ocean. These factors influence how sea levels will respond to climate change.

Go to Resource

Is your neighborhood at risk in extreme weather?

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Flood and Sea Level Rise

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

insideinvestigator.org by Tricia Ennis, July 25, 2024 When Connecticut experiences an extreme weather event, how much are you and your family at risk? A new dashboard from the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA) at the University of Connecticut aims to help answer that question, down to your street. In the Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), researchers at CIRCA developed an equation to estimate how areas of the state could be impacted by extreme weather, like severe storms or high heat. The equation combines the physical characteristics of an area with the type of population or services that could be affected and factors in any community resilience or other adaptive assets it has.

Go to Resource

Fallout from climate change in CT: Focus moves to inland towns that will be hit hard

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Flood and Sea Level Rise

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

Story by Kenneth R. Gosselin, Hartford Courant

The consequences of climate change are easy to understand along Connecticut’s coastline where the sea is now forecast to rise 20 inches by 2050.

But researchers at the University of Connecticut also are now turning their attention to inland Connecticut and places that are not anywhere near the coast or even a large waterway such as the Connecticut River.

Scientists at the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation are examining how more sudden, intense rainstorms are overwhelming decades-old drainage systems, leading to more frequent flooding.

“We’re seeing more of these high-intensity rain events, and then, the water is just coming down faster than it can drain away,” Mary Buchanan, a community resilience planner at CIRCA, said. “You don’t have to be anywhere near the coast to be experiencing climate change.”

Go to Resource

Devastating flood highlights need for climate resiliency

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Flood and Sea Level Rise

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

By Mike Savino • Published August 20, 2024 • Updated on August 20, 2024 at 5:04 pm

Go to Resource

In a summer of severe flooding in New England, a 1,000-year storm hit Connecticut. Here’s how.

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Flood and Sea Level Rise

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

The weather models didn’t see it coming. But “training” storms and an already primed atmosphere converged to deliver a surge of devastating rainfall.

By Chris Gloninger and Erin Douglas Globe Staff, Updated August 21, 2024,11:08 a.m.

On Aug. 19, 1955, the unimaginable happened.

A downgraded hurricane named Diane blasted the small rural town of Burlington, Conn., with a record 12-plus inches of rain and left 77 people dead statewide. Residents thought they had seen the worst of Mother Nature.

Then came this past Sunday, 69 years later to the day. And this time southwestern Connecticut felt the blow not from a hurricane and its the driving rain and slashing winds but from a storm so strong and so unusual in its ferocity that scientists categorized it as a historic, “1-in-1,000-year storm.” It broke Diane’s rainfall record by several inches.

Go to Resource

How can Connecticut prepare for a 1,000-year flood? It can’t, but strategy is changing

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Flood and Sea Level Rise

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

By Jordan Nathaniel Fenster, Staff writer Aug 21, 2024

https://www.ctinsider.com/

Sunday's storms have been described in many ways: a rain bomb, training storms, flash floods.

And then there is 1,000-year flood.

The devastating storm that flooded parts of Connecticut and swept away roads was far more than infrastructure could handle. Twelve-plus inches of rain fell in a short period, or three months worth of rain for the state.

But what exactly is a 1,000-year flood? No, it's not a flood that happens once only every 1,000 years, but instead a flood that has a one in 1,000 chance of happening in any given year, as the U.S. Geological Survey explained. That calculation — how often flooding events are likely to happen, is part of how flood risk maps are derived.

Go to Resource

Summer heat smashed records a CT city study seeks out neighborhoods suffering the most

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Heat

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

Hartford Courant Summer heat smashed records a CT city study seeks out neighborhoods suffering the most

Go to Resource

Opinion: Protecting Connecticut workers from heat is a hot topic

Type:

In the Media

Focus Area:

Heat

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

Applies to Multiple Towns

Climate Change Vulnerability Index
CCVI Flood Viewer
CCVI Extreme Heat Viewer
Zones of Shared Risk Viewer
Connecticut Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge Viewer
Connecticut Coastal Towns Storm Annual Exceedance Probability/Return Interval Viewer

Regional Workshop – CCVI & ZSR ñ MetroCOG Presentation Recording

Type:

Presentations

Focus Area:

Planning

Applies to Multiple Towns

CIRCA interview that discusses how global climate crisis is impacting Connecticut.

By James Szkobel-Wolff,

Zshekinah Collier, Catie Talarski, Khalilah Brown-Dean

Published June 16, 2021

After years of warning from scientists, the global climate crisis is impacting Americans across the country. This year, we’ve already seen unprecedented ice storms across Texas and one of the worst droughts in modern history in the west. But what kind of changes can we expect in Connecticut? This hour on Disrupted, we dig into the ways our changing climate is affecting our state. GUESTS:

Kirby C. Stafford, Chief Entomologist for the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES)
Jim O’Donnell, Professor of Marine Sciences at the University of Connecticut and Executive Director of Connecticut Institute of Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA)
J.D. Allen, Assistant news director and reporter for WSHU

CIRCA’s Resilient Connecticut Program Factsheet – Spanish Version

Type:

Infographics and Fact Sheets

Focus Area:

Planning

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

CIRCA, along with state agencies, regional Councils of Governments (COGs), and municipalities, initiated the Resilient Connecticut project in 2018. This project initially focused on areas impacted by Superstorm Sandy in New Haven and Fairfield Counties, but has since expand[1]ed to the rest of Connecticut. Activities include science-based risk assessments, community outreach, and pilot project designs. Products include maps, policy recommendations, and research. The goal of this work is to help decision makers prepare for changes in heat, flooding, and precipitation and advance planning for more resilient housing, transportation, and healthy communities.

Go to Resource

CIRCA Resilient Connecticut Project Factsheet

Type:

Infographics and Fact Sheets

Focus Area:

Planning

Applies to Multiple Towns

Go to Resource

Stormwater and Climate Resilience: Next Steps to Create a Municipal Stormwater Authority

Type:

Infographics and Fact Sheets

Focus Area:

Planning

Applies to Multiple Towns

Go to Resource

Resilient Connecticut Planning Framework

Type:

Publications and Reports

Focus Area:

Planning

Town:

Applies to Multiple Towns

During Phase I of the project, the CIRCA team engaged a broad range of stakeholders on the development of a Resilient Connecticut Planning Framework. This Framework will guide the plans, projects, and research activities initiated during Phases II and III and will build on the range of ongoing climate adaptation activities occurring in the state. The Framework will connect science-based risk assessment with innovative design strategies and apply them to practical planning practices. The RCPF will introduce a variety of applied tools and methodologies intended to influence Connecticut's resilience planning moving forward, focusing on five themes.

Go to Resource