Climate Change Potential Vulnerability Analysis Web Experience
MCPC has developed a web experience to assist municipal officials, business, residents, and others in gaining a better understanding of climate change and its effects in Montgomery County. From record heat to intense storms, such as Hurricane Ida in 2021, the county is experiencing the impacts of climate change, and scientific studies show that our region will become increasingly hotter and experience more intense and frequent storm events. Understanding the populations, places, and infrastructure that may be affected is critical for our communities as they adapt and become more resilient to climate change.
The "Montgomery County Climate Change Potential Vulnerability Analysis" offers an interactive way to understand the risk factors in your community, explore relative climate change potential vulnerability, and look at other relevant geospatial layers, such as tree canopy and land cover, inventories of critical infrastructure, and data of socioeconomic indicators from the American Community Survey. This analysis application offers in-depth examination and information on climate change impacts and provides opportunities to implement sustainability priorities on a more local scale (neighborhood or municipal level)
The analysis combines readily accessible information on sociodemographic, health factors, and critical infrastructure locales with historical temperature and flooding data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Montgomery County Division of Emergency Management, and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) to create risk indexes for heat, flooding, and potentially disadvantaged populations. Each risk index then contributes equally to the climate change potential vulnerability value for every community in Montgomery County. Ultimately, this analysis identifies areas that are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change relative to the rest of the county.
