The Town of Slaughter Beach is working to build economic resilience by valuing natural resources, exploring ecotourism, and promoting economic opportunity in the Mispillion River and Cedar Creek watersheds.  

The Town of Emmitsburg is currently mid-way through its first MS4 Permit cycle (10/31/18 - 10/30/23). To date, most of the Town’s effort has been focused on meeting the MCM requirements, leaving the more costly impervious restoration requirements for the later portion of the permit cycle. Additionally, the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) has informed the Town that there are certain activities that will need to be increased (such as the frequency of street sweeping) for the next permit cycle.

2022 (March)

Parks are vital infrastructure for healthy, flourishing communities, and are essential to improving the quality of life for city residents. In this report, Trust for Public Land (TPL) quantified the benefits of the network of city, state, and federal parks in New York City (NYC). NYC has an extensive park system that residents visit 527 million times per year, with 99 percent of residents living within a 10-minute walk to a park.1 Parks in NYC create billions of dollars of benefits and savings every year to residents, businesses, and visitors in all five boroughs.

2021 - 2024

In partnership with The Nature Conservancy and George Mason University, the Environmental Finance Center (EFC) worked to provide rural communities with the tools and data necessary to make financially and socially responsible decisions for adapting to climate-induced flooding from sea level rise, storms, and precipitation.  

States in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are implementing strategies to restore the health of the Bay and the region’s creeks, streams, and rivers.  These activities are being implemented in accordance with the US EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load, which identifies necessary pollution reductions from major sources of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment to meet water quality standards in the bay.  Through the “Financing Strategies” project, EFC seeks to support bay states in their pollution

Photo Credit: Eric Reed A universally accepted accounting framework to holistically measure the benefits and costs of urban and community forest resources does not exist.  EFC partnered with organizations versed in carbon trading, financing mechanisms, research, and urban forest management to develop a standardized, replicable, and transparent accounting system that can assess return on urban tree canopy investments for private, nonprofit, and public investors.   

With a grant from the Prince George’s County Stormwater Stewardship Grant Program, the University of Maryland (UMD) Environmental Finance Center (EFC) worked with four homeowner associations (Brinkley Station HOA, Vista Estates West HOA, Wyndham Woods HOA, & Residences at Victory Promenade HOA) and two civic associations (Oxon Hill CA and University Hills CA) to develop person

2022 (January)

The University of Maryland Environmental Finance Center (EFC) developed this guide with support from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to help local governments assess and improve their capacity for increasing climate change resilience. The guide provides an approach for developing a baseline of local government operations as it relates to climate change, integrating climate change into local daily decision making, and enhancing the core functions of local government to better enable the implementation of climate action strategies.

The EFC supported the Central Kenilworth Avenue Revitalization Community Development Corporation (CKAR) in conducting targeted outreach to the Latino community in the Greater Riverdale Area. The goal of the project was to assess community needs and then develop tailored outreach focused on family and community health and wellbeing.  As a project partner, EFC provided CKAR with technical expertise in strategy development, focus group and interview design, data analysis and synthesis, and development of messaging and communications delivery mechanisms.  

With support from the Chesapeake Bay Trust and the Montgomery County Water Quality Protection Fund, the EFC is providing stormwater education and outreach to residents in Montgomery county, Maryland.