Great Lakes Resiliency

The Great Lakes Commission (GLC) envisions the wider Great Lakes community using and benefitting from the Resilience Resource Library, including but not limited to government, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and academia. All members of the Great Lakes community have a role to play in securing a more resilient Great Lakes basin.

With this Resilience Resource Library, the GLC aims to ensure that the diverse, expansive body of Great Lakes resilience resources are accessible and contribute to a shared and expanding pool of knowledge. We acknowledge the many members of the Great Lakes community and their involvement with different components of resilience work.

Search for resources: The interactive nature of the Resilience Resource Library allows users to search for, filter, and view resources. Users can filter resources by topic (i.e. economics impacts), type (i.e. assessment), and jurisdiction. (Note: As resources representing diverse jurisdictions are uploaded, including sovereign nations, their associated jurisdiction will be displayed in the drop-down menu.)

Submit additional resources: Users can (and are encouraged to!) submit additional resources through the resource submission form.

In 2022, the GLC approved the Action Plan for a Resilient Great Lakes Basin (Action Plan). The Action Plan helps to prioritize efforts and forms a roadmap to advance climate resilience in the Great Lakes basin. It leverages existing efforts and supports collaboration among Great Lakes jurisdictions to promote shared learning and resources, and to create strategic partnerships that accelerate efforts for a more resilient and adaptive Great Lakes basin.

The Resilience Resource Library is one such implementation effort that the GLC has prioritized to achieve the Action Plan’s goals. It serves to fulfill a goal from the GLC’s 2021 resolution, Promoting Climate Resilience in the Great Lakes Basin, to “explore the status of resilience in the Great Lakes basin and identify areas of opportunities that could support resiliency efforts including studies, data, tools, guidance and other resources.”

To start the process of aggregating resources related to Great Lakes climate resilience, the GLC solicited assistance from students at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy to create a resource list and begin categorization. GLC staff added to the list of resources and reviewed entries, refined categories, created filters, and wrote summaries for each.

Resources included in the Resilience Resource Library are publicly posted on websites and/or published in journals. Only those resources created between 2005 to present, and pertaining to the Great Lakes geographic region (i.e., any one or more of the Great Lakes states and provinces, and/or any one or more of the Great Lakes or their tributaries and connecting channels) are included.

GLC staff will continue to update the Resilience Resource Library by uploading new resources and retiring any that are out of date. Please note that the library is not comprehensive of all resources. Users can help contribute to this effort by filling out the resource submission form with additional resources, to ensure the Resilience Resource Library is as comprehensive and inclusive as possible. Contact Samantha Miller ([email protected]) with any questions or comments regarding the Resilience Resource Library.