Building Resilient Communities

People living in the Intermountain West are no strangers to coping with and adapting to a wide range of hazards and extreme weather events. Agriculture and ranching coexist with burgeoning urban centers that represent a growing competition for limited water supplies, pushing development into fire-prone or flood-prone areas. Energy production has also been a major theme, driving settlement, economic activity, environmental concerns, and “job boom and bust” cycles in some areas. 

Extreme weather events and rapid community changes are challenging the resilience of communities in the Intermountain West like never before. These extreme events often connect and intersect with underlying challenges in ways that impact communities more than if they simply occurred in isolation. Cascading impacts to other critical areas like tourism and recreation, and water availability and quality will affect local community economies in ways that we are just beginning to understand. Rural communities are particularly vulnerable to these compounding hazards and impacts.

WWA is expanding our work with communities in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, with a particular focus on rural communities. Our work has shown that while many of these communities have a strong desire to build resilience, they face challenges that can make it difficult for them to navigate the broad range of existing tools and data sources, access support to optimize the effectiveness of their planning processes, and obtain local and sector-relevant information.

We welcome requests and suggestions from communities.