Neighborhood Resiliency Project Handbook 2025
- Barbara Hicks
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Guidance for waterfront communities on accelerating local flooding resilience efforts through community-led projects
The 2025 WDC Neighborhood Resiliency Project Handbook, provides guidance on how to develop and execute community-led projects to enhance neighborhood flood resilience. The handbook summarizes key insights and lessons learned from the development of the Wharf District Council’s 2023 Climate Resiliency Plan. The plan represents a uniquely successful exercise in establishing a public-private partnership; working with the city, state, and federal government; and generating a shared vision amongst stakeholders and community members on a district-wide protection and resiliency plan.
This handbook seeks to support and foster the propagation of similar community-led approaches, encouraging local organizations, non-profits, and citizens to accelerate and complement broader efforts to make neighborhoods and communities more resilient.
“By building unanimous consensus for flood resiliency measures amongst such a wide range of stakeholders, we achieved something really special with the 2023 resiliency plan. It’s something that hasn’t been done before in Boston and possibly in the country. When we realized other communities have the potential to begin leading similar initiatives to protect and enhance their neighborhoods, we also understood it was our responsibility to share everything we learned along the way to set them up for success.”
Derek Anderson, Associate, Arup
“Boston is one of the most vulnerable cities when it comes to flooding, but we view that as an opportunity to be the ones to develop the solutions to these new challenges.”
Marc Margulies, President, Wharf District Council
The handbook provides a range of guidance for practices such as identifying when and where community-led flood resilience projects will be most productive, obtaining and utilizing funding through non-profit structures, and engaging stakeholders to build consensus around engineering measures and interventions that protect properties and community assets from flooding.
Importantly, these projects can happen in conjunction and in parallel with city, state, and federal efforts, both alleviating the burden on governments while empowering communities to enact meaningful, local change to protect current and future residents.
