ADAPTING TO NEW THREATS
Assessing Climate Vulnerability in Erie County By P. Josh Wilson, Director of Sustainability, Erie County Department of Environment and Planning
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s the impacts from climate change take over headlines, local governments are on the front lines protecting their communities and responding to the consequences. These impacts disproportionately affect our most vulnerable residents, and New York State counties, with their important emergency, public health, planning, and social services roles, are the lynch pins for integrating climate resilience into our communities’ plans and operations.
program, which has provided a grant that is allowing the county to work with a team from University at Buffalo that includes Dr. Susan Clark, Dr. Christian Renschler, Jonathan Townsend and Samantha Horne. The CVA has been conducted with input and oversight from our Community Climate Change Task Force, which is made up of expert and community stakeholders, and advises the county on our climate action initiatives. The project is nearing completion, and will wrap up later this year. The CVA effort is using a three-phase approach:
Western New York, the region that is home to Erie County, is in some ways in an enviable position – with temperate weather moderated by the Great Lakes, abundant fresh water, and long distance from the ocean, we are better known for snow storms than heat waves, droughts or hurricanes. But this narrative of our region as a ‘climate oasis’ can also be a trap. For example, one respected climate model has shown a potential for seventeen 100-degree days per year in Buffalo by 2070. We are a community that has never recorded a single 100-degree day, many of our buildings lack air conditioning, and in many ways, we are more vulnerable to heat events than communities that regularly deal with high heat. Our older building stock and high proportion of seniors and low-income residents magnify this threat. Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz has overseen a broad effort to take action on climate change and in 2019 the county began work on a Climate Vulnerability Assessment (CVA). This effort, led by the Department of Environment and Planning, focuses on the county’s role in addressing climate threats. The work is being supported by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s Climate Smart Communities 32
NYSAC News | Fall 2021
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Assess the upcoming threats from climate change, such as extreme weather events and vector borne disease;
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Investigate the sensitivity of the community to these climate threats; and
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Determine the adaptive capacity of the county to address the identified threats and sensitivities.
