Improving climate resilience in the Neponset Watershed requires all of us to take action.
NepRWA is partnering with towns across the region to support public education and activities around climate resilience planning and projects.
Regional Community Advisory Group
Your community needs you to take action, voice your concerns, and provide feedback on the decisions that local elected officials are making about climate resiliency.
As we look forward to advancing our regional community resilience program, we plan to recruit residents and business owners to serve on a community advisory group, with significant representation from folks living or working in environmental justice neighborhoods or with other priority populations disproportionately affected by climate change.
You don’t need to be a climate scientist to make informed decisions about resilience activities in your city or town.
The group will learn more about the impacts of climate change and opportunities to improve resilience — and will be meaningfully involved in the planning and implementation of climate resilience projects pursued through the Neponset Climate Resilience Collaborative.
Read About the Stoughton Climate Resilience Project
For more information or any questions, please email NepRWA Managing Director for Community Resilience, Kerry Snyder at snyder@neponset.org
Keep an eye out for announcements about community events and educational opportunities!
Stay up-to-date with the latest local news and events about our changing Watershed. We’re all in this together!
We hope you attend, bring your friends, family, and neighbors, and let us and your municipal officials know what your priority concerns are.
Climate change doesn’t affect everyone or every community in the same way.
For example, systemic racism has caused inappropriate development within neighborhoods occupied by people of color.
Additionally, we often find families of limited means living in areas with few green spaces—and not by choice. These types of environments have lots of paved and other hard surfaces, limited open space, polluted air from high traffic and industry, and offer little opportunity for recreation.
Unsurprisingly, as the temperature increases due to climate change, heat waves and drought become more frequent and severe, and precipitation pattern changes lead to more frequent and severe floods, these neighborhoods are disproportionately affected.
More hard surfaces mean stormwater has few places to go. And heat is absorbed and radiated back from streets and sidewalks raising local temperatures higher than those in neighborhoods with more shade trees and parks.
Many residents who are disproportionately affected by climate change have also been historically excluded from decision-making about development and other policies.
It’s therefore crucial that NepRWA and others support and elevate those marginalized voices as we plan and implement changes to improve community resilience.
