Home to Savannah and Tybee Island, Chatham County is Georgia’s fifth-most populous county, and it is also one of the state’s fastest-growing. And with that come challenges to conservation and sustainable land use.
To support the community, Georgia Conservancy is partnering with Chatham County and Resilient Cities Catalyst to establish a vision for Chatham County’s Resilience Program and a course of action to realize this vision. The Chatham County Resilience Roadmap is a community-driven effort that will allow the County to better understand the challenges it faces, break down silos, identify and prioritize opportunities to build upon existing work, and launch initiatives that support the County’s ability to thrive in the face of shocks and stresses.
Over the past year, our team has led a series of one-on-ones and small-group listening sessions to ground the Roadmap in the lived experiences of community members, service providers, and County staff. Online engagement opportunities were also made available, and input from thousands of residents gathered during recent planning processes was leveraged.
We expect this plan to be released by the end of Summer 2026, which is when the real work of implementation will begin!
The Chatham County Resilience Roadmap was funded through a grant from the Climate Smart Communities Initiative (CSCI). CSCI is a unique public-private partnership managed by a consortium of six organizations, including the Geos Institute, Climate Resilience Fund, EcoAdapt, Fernleaf, and NRDC, working in collaboration with the NOAA Climate Program Office, and with support from The Coca-Cola Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.
This effort is being undertaken as part of the Georgia Conservancy’s Navigator Network program, supported by the Geos Institute.