Resilience Technical Assistance
Building Community Resilience to Climate Impacts
Rhode Island communities are experiencing increasing impacts from climate change, including more intense rainfall, flooding, sea level rise, stronger storms, and shifting seasonal patterns. These changes pose risks to transportation networks, water and wastewater systems, energy infrastructure, municipal facilities, natural resources, and local economies.
The Rhode Island Division of Statewide Planning partners with municipalities to proactively address these challenges through the Resilience Technical Assistance Program.
We provide flexible, locally tailored planning support to help communities reduce risk, protect public investments, and strengthen long-term resilience.
What We Do
The program is designed to respond to a municipality’s specific resilience priorities. Assistance may focus on regulatory updates, infrastructure analysis, corridor planning, or broader systems-based strategies.
Project types may include:
Regulatory & Policy Updates
- Reviewing and updating zoning and land use regulations
- Revising Land Development and Subdivision Regulations
- Strengthening stormwater and floodplain standards
- Reducing impervious cover and improving runoff management
- Integrating resilience into comprehensive plans
- Developing policy tools and incentives that support resilient development patterns
Infrastructure & Corridor Planning
- Assessing transportation corridors vulnerable to flooding
- Developing strategies to reduce flood risk to critical roadways
- Evaluating infrastructure vulnerabilities and adaptation options
- Identifying conceptual design solutions to improve durability and system performance
- Supporting resilience-focused capital improvement planning
Whether modernizing municipal codes or analyzing flood risk to key infrastructure assets, our goal is to deliver actionable recommendations tailored to local conditions.
How the Program Works
The Resilience Technical Assistance Program is structured as a partnership.
- RIDSP and the municipality collaboratively define the project scope
- RIDSP manages procurement and hires the consultant
- RIDSP funds and administers the contract
- Depending on the funding source, municipalities may provide match in in-kind staff time and/or cash.
- Municipal staff actively guide priorities and outcomes
- Regular coordination meetings ensure strong collaboration
This approach allows communities to access technical expertise while maintaining local ownership of the process and results.
Featured Projects
RIDSP has partnered with municipalities across Rhode Island to address a range of resilience challenges, from regulatory modernization to transportation corridor flood mitigation strategies. Below are examples of recent projects:
Barrington | Bristol | Warren
In collaboration with the Towns of Barrington, Bristol, and Warren, RIDSP supported development of the Resilient Route 114 Plan to assess the current and future vulnerability of the critical Route 114 corridor.
The study evaluated coastal flood risks and identified key areas of vulnerability along the roadway. Conceptual alternatives were developed to reduce long-term flood impacts and improve the resilience and durability of this essential regional transportation corridor.
RIDSP partnered with the Town of Cumberland to strengthen climate resilience through updated land use policies and regulations.
With assistance from Horsley Witten Group, the Town is integrating resilience into zoning, site plan review, and design standards. The updates aim to reduce risks associated with flooding, extreme temperatures, high winds, and other climate-related impacts.
The project supports directing development away from vulnerable areas, protecting natural systems and open space, promoting green infrastructure, and encouraging resilient building and site design practices.
Narragansett
RIDSP is partnering with the Town of Narragansett to incorporate updated natural hazard mitigation and climate resilience standards into municipal regulations.
This initiative builds upon recent planning efforts, including the Municipal Resilience Program Community Resilience Building Workshop (2022) and the Town’s Hazard Mitigation Plan (2024), which identified priority hazards such as coastal flooding and erosion, stormwater flooding, and extreme heat..
Through updates to zoning ordinances, land development regulations, and design guidelines, the project will strengthen long-term community resilience. Funding is provided by the Rhode Island Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4), and Horsley Witten Group has been contracted by the State to assist the Town
Interested in Applying?
Resilience Technical Assistance is offered on a competitive basis. If your community is interested in addressing climate-related risks through planning, regulatory updates, or infrastructure analysis, we encourage you to contact RIDSP to discuss potential project ideas.
For more information about the Division of Statewide Planning’s Resilience Technical Assistance program please contact Assistant Chief, Roberta Groch, AICP at 401-222-4720 or Supervising Planner Caitlin Greeley, AICP at 401-222-2848.