Sobis is excited to announce our support in developing the vulnerability and risk assessment for the Albemarle County Resilience Plan. Under contract with the Piedmont Environmental Council (https://www.pecva.org/) and Resilient Virginia (https://resilientvirginia.org/), Sobis is leading the effort to assess how the County may be impacted by future hazards. This detailed look at how climate change will exacerbate impacts on the County will be used to identify ways to reduce risk and endure future challenges.
The Albemarle County Resilience Plan will address future flooding, drought, high temperatures, wildfire, and tree health. This will be phase one of a two phase effort to develop a resilience plan with phase one covering the risk assessment and identifying future issues for the County. The project will cover human health risks, physical impacts to the buildings and infrastructure, water resource requirements, and agricultural and natural environment concerns. A final phase one report will be final by the end of 2021.
“After supporting climate impact and resilience planning across the world, it is nice to be able to help local Virginia communities with this important work,” said Bill Bohn, the Sobis Project Manager.
Grant Announcement for Virginia Communities
Virginia has a new grant opportunity open to all Virginia jurisdictions. $18 million will be provided to Virginia jurisdictions under this grant with only a 10% match required for planning and capacity building in lower income areas. Under this new grant, Virginia communities can apply for grant funding for (1) planning and capacity building, (2), flood prevention and protection studies, (3) projects that will result in nature-based solutions, and (4) other projects. Localities that want to pursue a project will require a resilience plan. Sobis has extensive experience writing resiliency plans including for jurisdictions within the Commonwealth. We would be happy to support you in applying for these grant opportunities and working with you on the implementation. We also have materials you can use to educate your decision-makers on what a resilience plan contains and how long it takes to create one.
For information can be found here: 2021 Grant Manual for the Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund. Applications are due September 3, 2021 at 4pm.