Building a Replicable Resilience Hub Playbook
Launching in Summer 2026, the Resilience Hub Playbook provides facilitated guidance to empower communities to develop Resilience Hubs by leveraging existing facilities that support communities during disasters and crises caused by climate change, pandemics, and other emergencies. The overall goal is to provide a replicable process through the Resilience Hub Playbook to provide facilitated guidance to empower communities to independently develop Resilience Hubs.
Resilience Hubs are a disaster-resilience solution that:
- Center community decision-making
- Are co-developed and co-designed with community groups
- Are multi-hazard, multi-benefit
- Enhance a trusted community space
- Have important roles before, during, and after disaster
The question “how do we sustainably and equitably operationalize Resilience Hubs?” is posed by our local and state partners. We plan to address this question by helping build replicable and equitable Resiliency Hubs throughout NYS, then throughout the US and globally.
Resilience Hubs have been in use in urban areas with capacity to invest in resilience
We are developing a tangent frame specifically for suburban and rural communities, who have different needs and capacity than their urban neighbors. In this lens we are working with community partners to develop and test a facilitated Playbook that any community can use. To do this we collaboratively identified six Resilience Zones to invest in before, during, and after a hazard event, building on USDN’s five foundational areas.
- Services & Programming
- Communication & Information
- Building & Landscape
- Power & Energy
- Operations & Maintenance
- Participation & Partnerships
Resilience Hubs As a Community Need
Climate change and extreme weather increasingly threaten and impact communities, infrastructure, and the environment globally. Increasing numbers of disasters proves the need to increase adaptive capacity and resilience of neighborhoods and communities.
One such solution is establishing community resilience hubs. Resilience hubs are community-serving facilities that support residents and coordinate the distribution of essential resources and services to prepare for, withstand, and recover from hazard impacts. The goal of establishing resilience hubs is to improve a community’s capacity by leveraging trusted community-managed facilities, better connecting neighborhoods and their most vulnerable residents to improved response and recovery aid.
Possible services provided by community climate resilience hubs that strengthen community resilience could include
- Streamlining health programming and resources and providing access to basic medical supplies in the event of a climate hazard;
- Helping disadvantaged communities reduce financial impacts that occur during and after climate hazards;
- Reducing the need for public safety, hospitals, and relief organizations due to their contributions of services to prepare for and recover from a climate hazard event;
- Identifying community member needs and addressing disproportionate access to opportunities and resources;
- Offsetting grid supplied power from solar or storage systems, developing or protecting natural systems, and reducing carbon emissions;
- Creating a safe space for residents to build community cohesion, foster a sense of place, and strengthen relationships; and
- Providing a space for workforce partners to host job training and job fairs.
Tools and Documentation
- Playbook launching in summer 2026
- Work inspired by Urban Sustainability Directors Network
News and Media
- October 10, 2024: NYS Communities Create a Crisis Resilience Playbook, With Cornell Help
- May 9, 2024: Multi-Hazard Resilience for Climate Justice (Climate Solutions Fund Award | The 2030 Project)
Research Team
Faculty Co-PIs:
Student Research Interns:
- Alyssa Coleman
- Devin Chen
- Jie Zhao
