Resilient Virginia is partnering with Virginia Commonwealth University Research Institute for Social Equity (RISE) and the Electric Infrastructure Security Council (EIS) to use data and community engagement to shed light on climate justice issues and accelerate resiliency funding opportunities in the City of Richmond. The project is supported by a grant from the Windward Environmental Justice Data Fund.

The proposed project focuses on collecting, analyzing, and creating data packages to inform the development and allocation of hazard mitigation funding to prioritize the protection of historically marginalized communities located near and around critical infrastructure in the Richmond, VA metropolitan area. By collecting data from diverse sources including community members, the project will assess the impact of climate change and degradation due to disasters and environmental hazards on the critical infrastructure in and around historically marginalized and underserved communities.

The project will provide the information and support needed to encourage investment of public and private funding into frontline communities who are most at-risk of climate change and disaster impacts. The data packages produced will augment grant applications, inform mitigation strategies and plans, and ultimately impact the communities by ensuring that much needed resilience investments are made.

The project will launch in late Spring of 2023, so stay tuned for more information.