From Iowa's pioneering flood-monitoring network to North Carolina's comprehensive resilience blueprint, states are demonstrating what's possible when local leaders take ownership of their climate futures.
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From Iowa's pioneering flood-monitoring network to North Carolina's comprehensive resilience blueprint, states are demonstrating what's possible when local leaders take ownership of their climate futures.
By Erin Delawalla, Contributing Author for The Epicenter and founder of Regenerate Strategies LLC, a consultancy focused on developing investable strategies for the restoration of nature at scale.
As the federal shutdown comes to an end, extreme rainfall isn't waiting for Congress to reconvene. Climate data shows heavy precipitation events are intensifying across the country, leading to heightened flood risk in dozens of states. This collision of accelerating flood risk and unreliable federal support has forced states to confront a stark reality: building flood resilience is up to them.
From Iowa's pioneering flood-monitoring network to North Carolina's comprehensive resilience blueprint, states are demonstrating what's possible when local leaders take ownership of their climate futures.
In this article, we profile four states—Iowa, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Washington—that have built sophisticated flood resilience programs. Their approaches vary widely, from academic research centers to nature-based solutions to public-private partnerships, but each offers both a bright spot in the current landscape and a practical blueprint for other states navigating the twin challenges of climate adaptation and political uncertainty.
Following devastating flooding in 2008, the State of Iowa passed legislation to provide $1.2M per year to the University of Iowa to develop a statewide monitoring system, which now resides at the Iowa Flood Center (IFC)—the nation’s only academic research center devoted solely to flooding. As a center of research and technology, the IFC provides accurate, state-of-the-art, science-based information to help Iowans better understand and reduce their flood risks.
The IFC provides a comprehensive approach to flood monitoring, mapping, mitigation, and education:
North Carolina has a long history of catastrophic flooding. Every county in the state has experienced at least two major flood disasters since 1950, and the state was devastated by Hurricane Helene in 2024.
The consistent flood risk across the state prompted North Carolina to pass legislation in 2021 to establish the Flood Resiliency Blueprint, which created an actionable set of projects and funding strategies to reduce flooding risk and boost resilience. The Blueprint, led by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, is the largest statewide flood mitigation investment in state history. (It was updated in Spring of 2025, after Hurricane Helene).
The Blueprint has three primary objectives:
As part of the Blueprint, the Department of Environmental Quality is also developing an online decision-support tool that will drive state, regional, and community decision-making and guide the legislature in funding decisions. The tool will allow government agencies to visualize flood vulnerability for different flood risk conditions and choose from a suite of flood mitigation strategies that reduce flood risk and damage.
Wisconsin has experienced three major floods in the last 10 years, including one in 2016 that caused $41M in property and infrastructure damage. Like most states across the US, Wisconsin is prone to flood-related damage because it has lost 50% of its historic wetlands, which provide natural flood storage after heavy rains.
In April 2024, the Wisconsin legislature passed SB 222 with bipartisan support, a law that established a new program to help rural, flood-prone communities plan and implement projects to prevent future flooding. SB 222 focused on nature-based solutions, including restoration of floodplains and wetlands.
The new program, administered by Wisconsin Emergency Management, will provide grants to communities to conduct watershed planning and implement nature-based solutions that help mitigate flooding.
In Washington state, the public-private partnership Floodplains by Design (FBD) is working to reduce flood damage, improve working lands, and restore habitat along Washington’s streams and rivers.
FBD provides flexible funding to design and implement various management best practices that enhance floodplain health and resilience to flooding, improve river health and support habitat restoration for salmon, and support agriculture.
The Department of Ecology and Bonneville Environment Foundation oversee the program for the State of Washington, working closely with counties, soil and water conservation districts, tribal partners, salmon recovery teams, and dozens of implementation partners across the state.
The Nature Conservancy initially led the effort to establish this program under a grant from EPA’s National Estuary Program, and then sought funding from the State of Washington in 2013, successfully securing $44M. Since then, the state has funded over $359M in statewide resiliency efforts.
Since its inception, the program has achieved success at scale:
States across the country are not waiting for the next flood: they’re addressing risk, investing in resilience, and giving communities the tools they need to solve local problems. As the federal government returns to work under current budget conditions, approaches to resilience rooted in local wisdom are more important than ever.
As Matt Posner wrote in a recent article in The Epicenter, “The path forward for resilient infrastructure lies in re-centering action at the local level—where financing, accountability, and public benefit align. Future resilience will depend on how creatively states and municipalities use the powers of federalism to protect their people, mobilize capital, and maintain stability when Washington cannot.”
The good news is that these states are paving the way and showing what’s possible.
Erin Delawalla previously led nature-based solution development for community resilience needs in the Midwest for RES, the nation’s largest operational ecological restoration company. Delawalla is a licensed attorney with extensive experience in permitting issues related to renewable energy and natural resources. She previously worked at a large renewable energy developer, managing wildlife and wetland issues for over a gigawatt of utility-scale wind and solar projects.
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