How Resilience Planning Helps Communities Adapt and Strengthen

Resilience planning has become a critical focus in response to today’s unprecedented environmental challenges and billion-dollar climate disasters, which demand immediate and strategic action.

Resilience planning involves a detailed assessment of vulnerabilities and the formulation of mitigation solutions (that is, solutions that lessen negative impacts) to build communities that can withstand both current and future impacts. In states like Florida, Louisiana and Texas, this has involved strengthening infrastructure systems to adapt to a wide range of hazards, including tidal flooding, storm surge, extreme rainfall and more.

The importance of resilience planning cannot be overstated, especially across the southeastern United States, where recent severe weather-related events have resulted in economic losses to both social and natural systems.

Each icon on the map above represents a weather event in 2024 that caused damages exceeding $1 billion (Source: National Centers for Environmental Information)

States are ramping up their resilience efforts in response to growing disaster and infrastructure challenges. Many are advancing new policies, launching targeted initiatives and investing billions of dollars in risk reduction, disaster recovery and long-term adaptation.

The first step to helping communities be resilient (and truly thrive) in the face of disasters begins with identifying vulnerabilities.

From Planning to Action: The Resilient Pasco Project

Resilience planning has now emerged as a key component of community development strategies — such as in Pasco County, Florida. The Resilient Pasco Project stands as a testament to the effectiveness and value of resilience planning.

Halff’s expertise in Planning, Landscape Architecture, Water Resources, GIS, Environmental, Survey, Public Works and Funding Resources all played a key role in contributing to the success of the project.

Located in a region prone to various environmental hazards like hurricanes and coastal storms, the Resilient Pasco Project focuses on implementing adaptive strategies tailored to the unique challenges of the area. It was developed between 2023 and 2025 with Community Development Block Grant – Mitigation (CDGB-MIT) funding and involved collaboration with Taylor Engineering and Fernleaf.

Workshops, public surveys and interactive activities made this a highly collaborative and stakeholder-driven effort. Valuable input from local community members and government officials was of utmost importance. Bringing experts from diverse fields together to collaborate, the result was a model of resilience that other communities can emulate.

“Resilient communities are those that adapt to changing conditions, enabling people and places to recover quickly from disasters and flourish despite adversity. At Halff, our resilience initiatives are driven by a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach. By leveraging expertise across Water, Mobility, Infrastructure, and Placemaking, we offer comprehensive solutions that strengthen communities and support their long-term vitality.”

– Halff Resilience Market Leader Sean Lahav

The Resilient Pasco Project consisted of the following key deliverables:

• • • Countywide Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (R&VA)
    • Resilience and Sustainability Action Plan (RSAP)
    • Living Shorelines Plan (LSP)

Pasco County is now strategically leveraging the Resilient Pasco Project to inform how it invests more than $585 million in CDBG – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds, marking a major step toward long-term resilience.

As outlined in the County’s recently released draft CDBG-DR Action Plan, the Resilient Pasco Project—developed by Halff—serves as a core foundation for identifying and prioritizing recovery projects. The plan emphasizes that CDBG-DR dollars will be used to help close the implementation gap for projects identified through Resilient Pasco, ensuring alignment with the County’s broader resilience framework, including the Local Mitigation Strategy (LMS), R&VA and RSAP.

This integrated approach not only maximizes the impact of disaster recovery funding but also builds on existing stakeholder input and technical expertise to support lasting, strategic improvements countywide.

Realize Your Resilience Potential. Halff’s resilience planning approach involves active engagement with you every step of the way, proposing actionable solutions that mitigate risk and bring long-term sustainability to communities.

Learn more about Halff’s unique resilience services by viewing our brochure.

Take the first step in resilience planning for your community by contacting Halff’s Resilience Market Leader Sean Lahav (sLahav@halff.com).