A team of undergraduate students led by co-PI Dr. Geoffrey Habron at Furman University conducted research with 13 predominantly Black Special Emphasis Neighborhoods (SEN) to identify climate risks and concerns. Results identified urban heat, health disparities, gaps in workforce development, and a lack of tree canopy as leading community concerns. This information can help inform local mitigation and adaptation strategies.

TreesUpstate, a Greenville based non-profit organization, requested support in expanding this work to Spartanburg, SC, as the City of Spartanburg recently published a Comprehensive Plan outlining a growth and conservation framework. Students worked closely with TreesUpstate to identify neighborhoods of interest to inform tree planting efforts to equitably address urban heat islands.

The C3HE team is also conducting focus groups with Hispanic and Latinx communities to understand how residents across environmental, geographical, economic and political power boundaries across Greenville County conceptualize environmental change, equity, and health in their communities. Examining climate and resilience priorities across jurisdictional boundaries will allow disparate communities to find common ground and work towards mutual benefit.

Fountain Inn, a town in Greenville County, solicited the support of the C3HE team in the process of updating their comprehensive plan. The Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities at Furman University, which is a collaborating institution of the C3HE team, produced maps showing the city's temperatures, tree canopy, and impervious surfaces, which can help inform future zoning and development. The INNvision Comprehensive Plan was passed on February 8, 2024 and features never before considered resiliency elements such as social vulnerability and extreme heat, including the map on surface temperatures that was developed by the Shi Institute.

More details about this project, along with example maps, are included in the article from Furman University, How cities can push back against climate change.

The C3HE team will be working to identify opportunities to partner with other towns and cities throughout Greenville County to integrate community-focused resiliency elements into their local comprehensive plans.

According to the Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act (SC Code Section 6-29-510), municipalities are now required to address resilience elements. The South Carolina Office of Resilience (SCOR) defines resilience as ”the ability of communities, economies, and ecosystems within South Carolina to anticipate, absorb, recover, and thrive when presented with environmental change and natural hazards”.

As cities and towns are working on updating their comprehensive plans, the C3HE team will be developing methods of supporting local governments through this process. The product of the collaboration between the Shi Institute and the city of Fountain Inn can serve as a model for including community-focused resilience elements in local planning across the state.