Cities across the country have suffered massive flooding, causing environmental, psychological, health and financial hardship on residents and businesses. The size and frequency of storm events is increasing, and forecasts of future precipitation amounts suggest that the impact and resulting damage will continue to get worse. As a result, much of the infrastructure serving the major Great Lakes cities – that was designed and built decades ago – has insufficient capacity to meet original and current goals.

This new report from the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a member of Kresge’s Climate Resilient and Equitable Water Systems (CREWS) initiative, and Environmental Consulting & Technology examines shifting rainfall amounts due to climate change across five cities and assesses their community planning efforts. The cities examined are Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; South Bend, Indiana; and Buffalo, New York. The report was funded by the Great Lakes Protection Fund.