Climate change is happening. Sea levels are rising, baseline temperatures are warming, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, unpredictable, and severe across the country and the world. As the city of Nashville and Davidson County have seen increasing risks materialize from severe weather events and trends caused by climate change—more heat waves, flash floods, high wind events, and severe winter storms—the need to prepare and modify our built environment and its supporting systems has become increasingly evident. This is referred to as 'climate resilience': The ability to anticipate and adapt to the conditions of the changing climate, and withstand and recover rapidly from climate-driven disruptions.
For Metro Nashville, working toward resilience is about more than the weather or the environment. The effects of climate change can make daily life harder for people who are already facing hardship. For example, more hot days means higher electricity bills, and for some people, the outcome of hot weather is an inability to afford other necessary things. Climate change is a "risk multiplier," and it does not affect us all equally. The most severe climate harms continue to fall disproportionately upon people and communities that have suffered historical and ongoing marginalization, neglect, exploitation, and/or underinvestment, leaving them more exposed. If the underlying causes and outcomes of hardship are not addressed, true resilience is unachievable.
The guiding document for Metro's climate resilience goals is its forthcoming 2024 Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan (CARP), which represents the city's first effort to approach the climate crisis from a stance of resilience, and is intended to inform future Metro investments and programs. It focuses on Nashville's five main climate hazards—flooding, tornados, extreme heat and heat waves, extreme cold and winter storms, and thunderstorms—and documents the outcomes of a high-level vulnerability assessment that considered the direct and indirect impacts of climate-driven disruptions, and the opportunities to build adaptive capacity across Nashville's built environment, natural environment, communities, economic systems, and public services. It sets forth a strategic plan for deploying proactive strategies to reduce vulnerability and lower risk. The plan is organized under four primary goals, each of which have their own strategic plans.
A full database of Metro's Adaptation and Resilience Strategies is available on our Open Data Portal. Browse through more than 60 strategies, including best practice resources and examples from other cities and states, to learn more about tangible actions the city and its partners can take to increase our chances of thriving in the face of the changing climate.
Check out Metro’s Climate Resilience Story Map to learn about the main climate risks facing our city and some of the strategies we are targeting to reduce our risks.