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Publication Date
2025-5
Document Type
Capstone
Study Type
ENV 312
Advisors
Alexander Barron
Abstract
As climate risks only increase and institutions start planning how to adapt and mitigate, the strength of local and regional climate resilience systems is where the focus must be. The collaboration of HEI’s and the community they are within on their collective climate futures is an imperative step towards advancing the strength of these systems. Our goal is to remedy the disconnect between Northampton city and Smith College’s climate resilience planning by determining what strategic areas of synergy there are between their climate resilience planning priorities. Our research team will accomplish this goal over the three months by determining the current climate resilience status and concerns for Smith and Northampton respectively by applying a climate resilience assessment framework to the two communities as well as using spatial mapping to understand the distribution of pressures and resources. Since both communities are currently going through planning processes, accomplishing this goal will provide the timely groundwork and dialogue from which Smith and Northampton future planners can strategize on building towards their joint climate future. To determine their current climate resilience status and priorities, we used Smith and Northampton’s past planning reports as well as spoke to stakeholders on the priorities from the current planning processes. We also use spatial mapping to visualize the projected climate changes and current resilience resources. Our key findings are that Smith and Northampton’s current climate resilience have areas of improvement and have dimensions ideal for collective synergy. This signifies the potential of a collective climate resilience planning process to provide substantive growth opportunities in this collective climate future. We recommend that a diverse team develops a specific climate resilience plan as part of the climate justice plan and intertwines emergency planning. We recommend that Northampton leverage educational partnerships through a formalized channel.
Rights
©2025 Erica Li and Xintong Huang
Recommended Citation
Li, Erica and Huang, Xintong, "Town and Gown Climate Futures: Uniting the Climate Resilience Efforts of Northampton and Smith College" (2025). Capstone, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/other_projects/267
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