Catalyzing investment and building capacity in Las Cruces, New Mexico

Planning with extreme weather thresholds catalyzes a $400,000 green infrastructure investment in a historically underserved neighborhood in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Las Cruces has one full-time sustainability officer, Lisa LaRocque, who recognized the benefits of tapping into regional expertise to help increase sustainabiliy and resilience. Building on an existing relationship with the University of Arizona and the Climate Assessment for the Southwest (one of NOAA’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments Centers), city leaders expressed a desire to begin considering changing climate conditions in their planning. The city chose to partner with Adaptation International and other organizations in a NOAA Sectoral Applications Research Program-funded project to further explore how community-defined thresholds for extreme events could be used to understand and prepare for future climate changes.

The project provided a unique opportunity to facilitate a city-wide discussion about recent extreme weather events, thresholds for extreme events, access to customized climate projections based on the community-identified thresholds, and design and implementation of a local project to build community resilience based on collectively identified climate concerns.