One Austin: Our Resilience Framework for Action

One Austin: Our Resilience Framework for Action provides high-level summary of Austin’s key shocks and stresses and an outline of our key issues and aspirations (as articulated by existing plans, city documents, and our Community Advisory Committee).  

This framework lays out research questions that will guide the Office in engaging the broader public, City staff, private sector, non-profits, local agencies (including Travis County), elected officials, and more. Throughout this engagement process, we will uplift existing initiatives and work with partners to co-create new resilience actions to help strengthen individual Austinites, our neighborhoods, and our region.

UT-City Climate CoLab

Austin has a history of extreme weather, with community members and our local infrastructure increasingly facing frequent and intense events. To better prepare for an uncertain future, the City of Austin has partnered with the UT Jackson School of Geosciences to create the first city-specific climate collaborative globally. The UT-City Climate CoLab aims to develop Austin-specific climate information, data products, tools, and assessments. 

Climate Resilience and Adaptation 

Climate resilience is the capacity to prepare, respond, recover, and adapt to climate-related hazards. Climate projections indicate that Austin’s climate is becoming increasingly unpredictable, but we can expect more extreme weather. We will see an increase in the number of dry days per year, more frequent drought conditions, and more intense rainfall events. 

The Climate Resilience Action Plan outlines key strategies for the City of Austin’s operations, asset management, and long-range planning in response to climate change. It covers the services directly managed by City of Austin departments and describes key strategies for the City’s physical assets (energy, water, and telecommunications infrastructure, roads, and community facilities) to be implemented by the departments responsible for maintaining them. 

Heat Resilience

Austin’s first Heat Resilience Playbook (PDF 5.5 MB) emphasizes strategic actions the City and partners are taking to support community preparedness, prioritize cooling investments in high-heat neighborhoods, and ensure our infrastructure is resilient.

The City hopes to raise residents' awareness of heat risks, develop a collaborative framework within the City and community to build heat resilience, and establish a coordinated implementation of heat resilience efforts in Austin.

Heat Mapping

The City has participated in a partner-led effort by Go Austin Vamos Austin and researchers from the University of Texas to utilize the learnings from the 2020 Heat Mapping Campaign and conduct authentic engagement in the most impacted communities to co-develop heat relief strategies. This, in complement with the City's pilot on cool pavements led by Public Works and UT researchers and heat emergency response led by HSEM, begins setting a framework for heat management as we adapt and thrive in the face of climate change. See the below links for related heat resources: