Regional Roots, Resilient Future: How the Southern Lowcountry Is Collaborating to Accelerate Resilience Action
In South Carolina’s Southern Lowcountry, where stormwater knows no jurisdiction and sea level rise does not stop at county lines, communities are coming together to build climate resilience together.
The Southern Lowcountry Resilience Collaborative (SLRC) is a fast-growing alliance spanning Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton, and Colleton counties showing how shared goals, regional trust, and local leadership can build the future of climate resilience. And it has benefitted from the recent support of the South Carolina Climate Ready America Navigator, part of the Climate Ready America initiative led by the Geos Institute and supported by the Walmart Foundation.
Designing a Climate-Ready Downtown on the Edge of the Atlantic
Manteo, a coastal town on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, is no stranger to water. With rain, wind tides, and king tides, sometimes the difference between a sunny day and a flooded street is as simple as which direction the wind blows. In recent years, the town has faced an increasingly urgent reality: sea levels are rising, storm surges are intensifying, and high tide flooding is no longer a rare event.
Instead of retreating or resigning, Manteo is designing a different future. Their journey is part of Climate Ready America’s Southeast regional demonstration, led by Geos Institute and supported by the Walmart Foundation. This initiative is proving how local leadership, paired with technical guidance from trained climate experts called Navigators, can shape climate resilience strategies that last.
Listening First: How One Navigator Is Transforming Climate Resilience Across South Carolina
Adelaide Bates did not set out to become South Carolina’s climate connector-in-chief. But since joining the Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities in 2024, she has quietly become a trusted bridge between local governments, state agencies, universities, and everyday people navigating the frontlines of climate change.
As a Navigator hosted by the Shi Institute for Climate Ready America, Adelaide supports communities across the Lowcountry region. Climate experts like Adelaide are the entry point for many communities to Climate Ready America, a nationwide system designed to help every community build climate resilience. Led by Geos Institute and supported by the Walmart Foundation, this groundbreaking pilot in the Southeast is helping local leaders move from ideas to action. Her work helps demonstrate the kind of localized, relationship-based support that will one day be coordinated through Climate Innovation Centers in every state, with Navigators embedded in local communities to keep the work grounded and responsive.
Starting Strong: Homestead, Florida’s Resilience Journey Is Just Getting Started
When the City of Homestead was designated a Community Disaster Resilience Zone (CDRZ), they did not even know it. That changed the moment Alicia Betancourt picked up the phone.
Alicia Betancourt, a Navigator for Climate Ready America and hosted by the University of Florida IFAS Extension, recognized Homestead on the CDRZ list as a community that could benefit from immediate engagement. Community Disaster Resilience Zones, or CDRZs, are part of a federal initiative to prioritize under-resourced communities for climate resilience funding and support. For Homestead, that designation became the starting line for a deeper journey into long-term climate planning.
How a Town of 200 Is Rewriting the Rules of Climate Resilience
On the surface, Creswell, North Carolina, might seem like a town too small to make headlines. With a population of just 200, it is nestled quietly in the northeastern corner of the state, the kind of place where neighbors know each other by name, and the local infrastructure was built decades ago for a very different climate reality.
But Creswell is doing something extraordinary. With support from Geos Institute as part of the Climate Ready America Southeast regional demonstration, and funding provided by the Walmart Foundation, this tiny town is showing what happens when small communities are given access to big tools.
Robert Macnee, Ph.D. is Deputy Director of Resilience Services at Climate Resilience Consulting, where he helps governments, institutions, and communities reduce climate risk in equitable and practical ways. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Management focused on climate change impacts on health and communities, and brings over a decade of experience spanning economic development, resilience planning, and implementation.
Samantha Medlock is President of Climate Risk Advisors, helping communities and organizations advance equity, sustainability, and resilience. Her career began chasing floods as a local official in Texas Flash Flood Alley—a hands-on experience that still shapes her approach to climate and disaster risk management.
Jim is a multilingual world traveler. Based in Bavaria during the 1970s, Jim spent most of this period in India, Afghanistan and Nepal, where he founded and operated a charitable medical clinic serving Tibetan Refugees. He settled in Oregon in 1983 on a forested ranch in the Umpqua National Forest.
Dr. Micah Hahn is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health in the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. She received her joint PhD in Epidemiology / Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MPH in Global Environmental Health from Emory University. Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the CDC Climate and Health Program, and in this position worked collaboratively with the CDC Division of Vector-borne Diseases and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change and working with communities to develop locally-relevant adaptation and resilience-building strategies. Dr. Hahn is also on the Management Team of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Michael is a former Founding Principal of Resilient Cities Catalyst, a global non-profit helping cities and their partners tackle their toughest challenges. He is currently the Executive Director of Climate Resilience Academy at the University of Miami.
Dr. Quintus Jett is a consultant, educator, and strategist for public causes. He has a doctorate in Organizations & Management from Stanford University, and a two-decade faculty career which spans schools, departments, and programs of business, engineering, liberal studies, divinity, and public and nonprofit management. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Dr. Jett launched a volunteer project in New Orleans, which enlisted residents, students from over a dozen colleges and universities, and hundreds of others to field map the city’s Gentilly district, Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East. Dr. Jett is an innovator in higher education, bridging the divide between academic research and the other priorities of the modern university, including student access and diversity, community engagement, and providing foundations for life-long learning in today’s rapidly changing world.
Scott is Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He has written about 100 publications in the peer-reviewed climate literature, is a former editor of the Journal of Climate, and served for five years as founding Science Chair of the North American Carbon Program.
Linda has many years of experience in disaster preparedness and resilience. She has been an elected official on the Linn County Iowa Board of Supervisors, Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments, the statewide Mental Health Developmental Disability and the Linn County Board of Health. Langston is a former president of the National Association of Counties (2013-2014).
Ken works with families and organizations as a mediator, organizational consultant, trainer and facilitator. Along with his passion for helping people prepare for and reduce climate change, Ken also volunteers as a mediator through Mediation Works and is passionate about supporting youth through mentoring with Boys to Men of Southern Oregon.
Matthew is a retired high school teacher who was once honored as Oregon High School Social Studies Teacher of the Year. Before his teaching career he was in the restaurant business in Portland. He is also a lawyer who has been a member of the Oregon State Bar Association since 1980.
Andrea is the Resilience Policy Advisor for the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. She works across state agencies and with local governments to increase the state’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.