Municipal Training Programs

The coastal counties in Connecticut and New York bordering Long Island Sound have the second-highest population density in the northeast, second only to those bordering New York/New Jersey Harbor. Local government decisions affecting development, land use, and population density have a strong impact on community resilience as well as water and habitat quality in the Sound and its tributaries.

In recent years, many resources have been directed toward development of technical tools on a variety of resilience topics for use by decision-makers, however many of them remain underutilized due to a lack of awareness and/or knowledge about how to effectively use them to improve and inform decision-making, planning, and project design.  

The Sustainable and Resilient Communities team, composed of Extension Professionals at Connecticut Sea Grant and New York Sea Grant, works together to develop resilience training programs targeted at local decision-makers, practitioners, and community leaders to increase their awareness about technical tools, relevant resilience resources, best management practices, and regional case studies. The team’s training programs are developed in response to community needs identified through the work of the LIS Partnership, including an informal needs assessment completed in 2022, and are designed to increase regional capacity for adaptation to environmental challenges and improve overall management of Long Island Sound.

Program examples include:

• Steps to Resilience Webinars 
• Regional Funding Workshops 
• Virtual Annual Workshops 
• Field trips to learn from successful local resilience projects 
• Long Island Coastal Erosion Forums 
• Land Use Leadership Alliance Trainings 

Since 2022, more than 800 decision-makers have participated in Long Island Sound training programs. Here is what participants have said about these training programs: 

More information about upcoming training programs and access recordings and resources from past training programs is available on the Long Island Sound Resilience Resource Hub.