Historic Preservation, Flooding Threats are Community Resilience Drivers: Could Benefit from NIST Guides

Many communities across the country are dealing with flooding threats, but those that rely on historic and culturally important properties face special challenges in protecting and preserving their heritages. The economic importance of those historic sites makes this challenge even more important to planners and those charged with historic preservation.

The community resilience guides produced by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can help those communities, according to Jennifer Helgeson, Ph.D., and economist in the NIST Office of Applied Economics. A primary developer of the NIST Community Resilience Economic Decision Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems (EDG), Helgeson spoke at the Keeping History Above Water Conference in Annapolis, Maryland, on October 31. (The photo shows portions of an artist’s depiction of Dr. Helgeson's remarks as part of the conference’s illustrated summary.)

More than 200 preservation, economic development, emergency management, and resilience officials from cities, towns, counties, and states across the country participated in the three-day meeting. Helgeson reviewed how the NIST Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems and the EDG can help historically important and other communities to engage, assess, and make choices that can make for a more complete and faster recovery by improving the physical infrastructure that residents and businesses rely upon. She told participants that NIST is nearing completion of a related “EDGe$” tool -- easy-to-use software -- that guides the user through the steps of the EDG. EDGe$ is expected to be available for download online early in 2018.