GARY — Over the next few decades, scientists predict the Hoosier state will experience more extreme heat, more floods and more droughts.
Gary's proximity to Lake Michigan and the Indiana Dunes National Park, paired with the city's concrete and industrial landscape, make it especially vulnerable to flooding, wildfires, the urban heat island effect and bad air quality. While Gary has already experienced some of these climate-related extremes, as the effects of climate change worsen, the Steel City is trying to plan ahead.
“We need to plan for the future while addressing current issues," said Brenda Scott-Henry, director of the Gary Environmental Affairs Department.
Gary is working with Indiana Universities' Environmental Resilience Institute, or ERI, to craft a Climate Vulnerability Assessment and an Environmental Resilience Plan. The ERI connects participating municipalities with student fellows to help complete various sustainability projects.
Over the summer, an ERI fellow helped Gary draft a Climate Vulnerability Assessment detailing how different climate models predict the city will change throughout the next few decades. In July, the city discussed the vulnerability assessment during a day-long workshop. On Thursday, Gary held another day-long workshop, this time focused on climate resilience strategies. The Environmental Affairs Department has also circulated a survey asking residents to rank climate concerns, resilience strategies, their favorite natural elements in Gary and more.
Workshop feedback and survey responses will be used to craft the Environmental Resilience Plan. Erin Dennehy, the city's fall ERI fellow, said the plan will likely be completed by the end of the year.
Dennehy said she wants to work in municipal sustainability. She said Gary's approach to community engagement could serve as a blueprint for other cities.
According to the draft vulnerability assessment, residents are especially concerned about how climate extremes could damage aged infrastructure, interrupt transportation services and harm human health. Extreme weather could also worsen some of the cities' existing vulnerabilities. For example, high heat days will impact low-income residents the most as they may not be able to access air conditioning and flooding could carry pollutants into waterways.
According to a draft Climate Trends Primer prepared by the city and the ERI, by the end of 2090, Gary's annual average temperature is expected to increase from around 62 degree to about 71 degrees. At the same time, Indiana's number of days per year with precipitation levels over 1 inch is expected to increase from 4.3 to between 7 and 12.3.
Creating an Environmental Resilience plan will allow the city to apply for state and federal grants, Scott-Henry explained. In October, the the White House announced nearly $2 billion would be made available for climate resilience projects.
This summer, the city plans on applying for another ERI fellow to help them start implementing parts of the Environmental Resilience Plan.