Definitions
This page provides standardized terminology established by EPA and/or the White House through executive orders, guidance documents, strategic plans and official reports. Please note that these definitions may change in the future.
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
A
Adaptive Capacity:
- The ability of a human or natural system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) by moderating potential damages, taking advantage of opportunities or coping with the consequences. ( EPA Climate Adaptation Plan - 2021 (pdf) )
- The ability of systems, institutions, humans and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities or to respond to consequences. (NCA5 Glossary)
Adaptive Management:
A process of iteratively planning, implementing and modifying strategies for managing resources in the face of uncertainty and change. Adaptive management involves adjusting management approaches in response to observations of their effect on, and changes in, the system brought on by resulting feedback effects and other variables. (NCA5 Glossary)
B
Building Codes:
A building code is a set of regulations governing the design, construction, alteration, and maintenance of structures and equipment. Building codes specify how buildings and equipment must be constructed or perform and are written in mandatory, enforceable language. Building code is defined in federal statute (42 U.S.C. §6832(3)) as “a legal instrument which is in effect in a State or unit of general purpose local government, the provisions of which must be adhered to if a building is to be considered to be in conformance with law and suitable for occupancy and use. ( CRS Building Codes, Standards and Regulations: Frequently Asked Questions (pdf) )
Building Standards:
A standard is a set of guidelines and criteria against which a product can be judged. OMB Circular A-119 defines standards to include the common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines, or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods. ( CRS Building Codes, Standards and Regulations: Frequently Asked Questions (pdf) )
C
Capacity Building:
An activity to develop and strengthen processes and resources. The nature of capacity building is subject to the programmatic requirements and policy needs of the program. Adaptive capacity is the ability of systems, institutions, humans, and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities or to respond to consequences (NCA5 Glossary). In the context of climate adaptation, capacity building entails strengthening processes and resources so that the entity has a greater adaptive capacity, oftentimes including training, learning, and workforce development. (NCA5 Chapter 31)
Climate Adaptation:
- To take action to prepare for and adjust to both the current and projected impacts of climate change. ( EPA Climate Adaptation Plan - 2021 (pdf) )
- In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate and its effects. Human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects. (NCA5 Glossary)
Climate Change:
Changes in average weather conditions that persist over multiple decades or longer. Climate change encompasses both increases and decreases in temperature, as well as shifts in precipitation, changes in frequency and location of severe weather events and changes to other features of the climate system. (NCA5 Glossary)
Climate Equity:
- The goal of recognizing and addressing the unequal burdens made worse by climate change, while ensuring that all people share the benefits of climate protection efforts. Achieving equity means that all people — regardless of their race, color, gender, age, sexuality, national origin, ability, or income — live in safe, healthy, fair communities. (EPA Climate Equity)
- The principle of being fair and impartial and a basis for understanding how the impacts and responses to climate change, including costs and benefits, are distributed in and by society in more or less equal ways. Often aligned with ideas of equality, fairness, and justice and applied with respect to equity in the responsibility for, and distribution of, climate impacts and policies across society, generations and gender, and in the sense of who participates and controls the processes of decision-making. (NCA5 Glossary)
Climate Finance:
The financial resources devoted to addressing climate change by all public and private actors from global to local scales, including international financial flows to developing countries to assist them in addressing climate change. Total climate finance includes all financial flows whose expected effect aims to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions and/or to enhance resilience to the impacts of current and projected climate change. This includes private and public funds, domestic and international flows and expenditures (including project finance equity investments, private equity investments, other forms of equity, loan purchases, etc.). ( IPCC FAQ Chapter 15 (pdf) )
Climate Hazard Screening Tools:
These tools allow users to screen for climate change hazards using indices or indicators by visualizing current data and future projections for the following climate stressors at a minimum (wildfire, flooding, extreme heat, sea level rise extreme precipitation). They can generally help users answer questions about regional or location specific trends and often provide output in the form of mapped data (e.g., National Climate Assessment Atlas, Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation).
Climate Impact:
The consequences of realized risks on natural and human systems, where risks result from the interactions of climate-related hazards (including extreme weather/climate events), exposure and vulnerability. Impacts generally refer to effects on lives, livelihoods, health and well-being; ecosystems and species; economic, social and cultural assets; services (including ecosystem services); and infrastructure. (NCA5 Glossary)
Climate Justice:
The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all communities and stakeholders that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This includes the development and implementation of policies and strategies for anticipating, preparing for, adapting to and recovering from climate impacts. Certain communities and individuals can be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including low-income communities, communities of color, very young children, the elderly, people with disabilities and chronic health conditions, and Tribes and Indigenous People. ( EPA Office of Policy Climate Adaptation Implementation Plan (pdf) ) NOTE: There is no official federal government or EPA definition of "climate justice."
Climate Mitigation:
Measures to reduce the amount and rate of future climate change by reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. (NCA5 Glossary)
Climate Resilience:
- The capacity of a system to maintain function in the face of stresses imposed by climate change and to adapt the system to be better prepared for future climate impacts. ( EPA Climate Adaptation Plan - 2021 (pdf) )
- The capacity of interconnected social, economic and ecological systems to cope with a climate change event, trend or disturbance, responding or reorganizing in ways that maintain their essential function, identity and structure. Climate resilience is a subset of resilience against climate-induced or climate-related impacts. (NCA5 Glossary)
Climate Risk:
A combination of the magnitude of the potential consequence(s) of climate change impact(s) and the likelihood that the consequence(s) will occur, including threats to life, health and safety, the environment, economic well-being and other things of value. Risks are evaluated in terms of how likely they are to occur (probability) and the damages that would result if they did happen (consequences). (NCA5 Glossary)
Climate Risk Assessment Tools:
These tools walk users through a step-by-step process for performing a general or full climate vulnerability or climate risk assessment (e.g., Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool, Assessing Your Project’s Climate Risk (pdf) ).
Climate-Smart Infrastructure:
Refers to infrastructure and natural infrastructure that:
- Incorporate current and future climate change risk in planning, siting, design and operation of the infrastructure system. Approaches for incorporating climate change risk should make use of climate change projections and emission scenarios that are reflective of the infrastructure system’s anticipated service life. This includes consideration of the infrastructure system owner’s and beneficiaries’ risk tolerance and also consideration of climate change risks posed to the individuals, communities, local governments, organizations or other entities served by the infrastructure system, over its anticipated service life.
- Maximize sustainability over the system’s anticipated service life. This can be accomplished through incorporating sustainable design principles and operational practices, such as improved energy efficiency and procurement of reused, salvaged and alternative or low embodied carbon materials. ( OMB M-24-03 (pdf) )
Climate Vulnerability:
The degree to which physical, biological and socioeconomic systems are susceptible to and unable to cope with adverse impacts of climate change. (NCA5 Glossary)
Community Benefits:
The social, economic or environmental benefits provided to a community or surrounding community from a proposed or funded project. Many projects provide co-benefits, which are the positive effects that a policy or measure aimed at one objective might have on other objectives, irrespective of the net effect on overall social welfare. Co-benefits are often subject to uncertainty and depend on local circumstances and implementation practices, among other factors. (NCA5 Glossary)
D
Disadvantaged Community:
Population or geographic location in the United States that experiences disproportionate environmental and climatic harms and risks. This disproportionality can be a result of greater vulnerability to environmental hazards, lack of opportunity for public participation or other factors. Increased vulnerability may be attributable to an accumulation of negative or lack of positive environmental, health, economic or social conditions within these populations or places. The term describes situations where multiple factors, including both environmental and socioeconomic stressors, may act cumulatively to affect health and the environment and contribute to persistent environmental health disparities. (NCA5 Glossary)NOTE: This term has a distinct meaning when identifying geographically defined disadvantaged communities for any covered programs under the Justice40 initiative.
Disaster Risk Management:
Processes for designing, implementing and evaluating strategies, policies and measures to improve the understanding of current and future disaster risk, foster disaster risk reduction and transfer, and promote continuous improvement in disaster preparedness, prevention and protection, and response and recovery practices, with the explicit purpose of increasing human security, well-being, quality of life and sustainable development. (NCA5 Glossary)
Drought:
An exceptional period of water shortage for existing ecosystems and the human population (due to low rainfall, high temperature and/or wind). (NCA5 Glossary)
E
Embodied Emissions:
The amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the extraction, production, transport, and manufacturing of material. ( OMB M-24-03 (pdf) )
Energy Efficiency:
The use of improved technologies and practices to reduce the energy consumption of water quality projects, use energy in a more efficient way and/or produce/utilize renewable energy. ( EPA CWSFR Guidance for Determining Project Eligibility (pdf) )
Environmental Justice:
The just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of income, race, color, national origin, Tribal affiliation or disability, in agency decision-making and other federal activities that affect human health and the environment so that people:
- Are fully protected from disproportionate and adverse human health and environmental effects (including risks) and hazards, including those related to climate change, the cumulative impacts of environmental and other burdens and the legacy of racism or other structural or systemic barriers.
- Have equitable access to a healthy, sustainable and resilient environment in which to live, play, work, learn, grow, worship and engage in cultural and subsistence practices.
(EO 14096 - Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All)
Environmental Justice Mapping Tools:
These tools provide mapped environmental and demographic indicators. They help answer questions about regions facing environmental and/or climate justice issues (e.g.,EJScreen, CEJST).
Equitable Adaptation:
Adaptation that intentionally incorporates recognitional, procedural and distributional principles of equity in design, planning and execution. (NCA5 Glossary)
Extreme Events:
A weather event that is rare at a particular place and time of year, including, for example, heatwaves, cold waves, heavy rains, periods of drought and flooding and severe storms. Definitions of “rare” vary, but an extreme weather event would normally be as rare as or rarer than the 10% or 90% probability density function estimated from observations. The characteristics of what is called extreme weather may vary from place to place in an absolute sense. (NCA5 Glossary)
Extreme Heat:
Temperatures that are much hotter and/or more humid than average. Because some places are hotter than others, this depends on what is considered average for a particular location at that time of year. (NCA5 Glossary)
F
Federal Flood Risk Management Standard:
FFRMS is a flood standard that aims to build a more resilient future. As stated in Section 1 of Executive Order 13690, “It is the policy of the United States to improve the resilience of communities and federal assets against the impacts of flooding. These impacts are anticipated to increase over time due to the effects of climate change and other threats. Losses caused by flooding affect the environment, our economic prosperity, and public health and safety, each of which affects our national security. (FEMA Federal Flood Risk Management Standard)
G
Green Infrastructure:
The strategically planned, interconnected set of natural and constructed ecological systems, green spaces, and other landscape features that can provide functions and services, including air and water purification, temperature management, floodwater management, and coastal defense, often with benefits for people and biodiversity. Green infrastructure includes planted and remnant native vegetation, soils, wetlands, parks and green open spaces, as well as building and street-level design interventions that incorporate vegetation. (NCA5 Glossary)
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation (i.e., Climate Mitigation):
- The actions limiting the magnitude and rate of future climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. ( EPA Climate Adaptation Plan - 2021 (pdf) )
- Actions can be technological change and substitutions that reduce resource inputs and emissions per unit of output. Several social, economic, and technological actions would reduce emissions. This term can also be defined as measures to reduce the amount and rate of future climate change by reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. (NCA5 Glossary)
H
Hazard Mitigation:
- Hazard mitigation refers to any action or project that reduces the effects of future disasters. Utilities can implement mitigation projects to better withstand and rapidly recover from hazard events (e.g., flooding, earthquakes, wildfires), thereby increasing their overall resilience. ( EPA Hazard Mitigation for National Disasters (pdf) )
- Any sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk to human life and property from hazards. (NCA5 Glossary)
I
Identifying Solutions Tools:
These tools help users identify what type of project to select, decide how to design their project for a specific goal and understand what types of benefits may occur from implementing that project. They often provide output in the form of informational text or case studies (e.g., ARC-X, Climate Resilience Toolkit Case Studies).
Incremental Adaptation:
Adaptation that maintains the essence and integrity of a system or process at a given scale. In some cases, incremental adaptation can accrue to result in transformative adaptation. Incremental adaptations to change in climate are understood as extensions of actions and behaviors already known to reduce the losses or enhance the benefits of natural variations in extreme weather/climate events. ( IPCC AII Glossary (pdf) )
Infrastructure:
Encompasses public infrastructure projects in the United States, which includes, at a minimum, the structures, facilities, and equipment for: roads, highways and bridges; public transportation; dams, ports, harbors and other maritime facilities; intercity passenger and freight railroads; freight and intermodal facilities; airports; water systems, including drinking water and wastewater systems; electrical transmission facilities and systems; utilities; broadband infrastructure; and buildings and real property. (FEMA Infrastructure)
Infrastructure Resilience:
The capacity of built environments — such as transportation systems, utilities, buildings and other critical infrastructure — to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and rapidly recover from disruptive climate-related events. This includes the ability to withstand extreme weather phenomena, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts and heatwaves, as well as gradual environmental changes, like sea-level rise and shifting temperature patterns. Resilient infrastructure is designed with flexibility, sustainability and future climate scenarios in mind, ensuring continuity of essential services and protection of public health and safety, while minimizing economic losses and environmental impacts. ( FWA DOT Sustainable Pavements Program (pdf) )
J
Justice40:
In January 2021, President Biden’s EO 14008 – Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad announced Justice40, which directs that at least 40 percent of the benefits of certain federal investments must flow to disadvantaged communities. Justice40 is a whole-of-government approach and is jointly led by the Council on Environmental Quality, Office of Management and Budget, and the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, along with the White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council that is convened by the Council on Environmental Quality. (Justice40 at EPA)
M
Maladaptation (Climate):
Occurs when actions are taken that may lead to increased risk of adverse climate-related outcomes, including via increased greenhouse gas emissions, increased or shifted vulnerability to climate change, more inequitable outcomes, or diminished welfare, now or in the future. Most often, maladaptation is an unintended consequence. (NCA5 Glossary)
Meaningful Engagement:
- Providing timely opportunities for members of the public to share information or concerns and participate in decision-making processes.
- Fully considering public input provided as part of decision-making processes.
- Providing technical assistance, tools and resources to assist in facilitating meaningful and informed public participation, whenever practicable and appropriate.
- Seeking out and encouraging the involvement of persons and communities potentially affected by federal activities by:
- Ensuring that agencies offer or provide information on a federal activity in a manner that provides meaningful access to individuals with limited English proficiency and is accessible to individuals with disabilities.
- Providing notice of and engaging in outreach to communities or groups of people who are potentially affected and who are not regular participants in federal decision-making.
- Addressing, to the extent practicable and appropriate, other barriers to participation that individuals may face. (EPA Learn About Environmental Justice)
N
Natural Infrastructure:
Natural infrastructure is infrastructure that uses, restores or emulates natural ecological processes” and: (i) “is created through the action of natural physical, geological, biological, and chemical processes over time;” (ii) “is created by human design, engineering, and construction to emulate or act in concert with natural processes;” or (iii) “involves the use of plants, soils, and other natural features, including through the creation, restoration, or preservation of vegetated areas using materials appropriate to the region to manage stormwater and runoff, to attenuate flooding and storm surges, and for other related purposes.” ( OMB M-24-03 (pdf) )
Nature-Based Solutions:
- Actions that protect, sustainably manage, or restore natural or modified ecosystems to address societal challenges, simultaneously providing benefits for people and the environment. Often, these solutions use long-standing conservation approaches, including protection or conservation of natural areas, reforestation, restoration of marshes or other habitats, or sustainable management of farms, fisheries, forests or other resources. Nature-based solutions include other similar terms used by federal agencies, such as green infrastructure, natural and nature-based features, natural climate solutions, and natural infrastructure. ( Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap (pdf) )
- Actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits. (NCA5 Glossary)
- Actions to protect, conserve, restore, and sustainably manage natural or modified ecosystems. These actions use natural features or processes to address public health and environmental challenges while providing multiple benefits to people and nature. (Clarification for types of ‘actions’: NBS encompass a wide range of actions that may include the planning, design, and maintenance of engineering practices that restore, use or enhance natural processes (e.g. green infrastructure, agricultural conservation practices, coastal restoration) and/or protect natural features to preserve ecosystem function (e.g. wetlands, forests, riparian areas, coral reefs)). (EPA Green Infrastructure Federal Collaborative)
P
Partnerships:
A formal relationship between two or more eligible funding recipients that is memorialized in writing and is legally binding under applicable law, typically under a grant or cooperative agreement. The partnership agreement must specify which member of the partnership will enter into the assistance agreement with EPA for the purposes of accountability for the proper expenditure of federal funds, performance of the assistance agreement, liability for claims for recovery of unallowable costs incurred under the agreement and must specify roles in performing the proposed scope of work for the assistance agreement. One eligible recipient in the partnership must receive EPA funding as the direct recipient of the funding and the other partner(s) receiving funding as a subrecipient(s). (EPA Partnerships)
Planned Relocation:
In human systems, a form of mobility in response to direct climate impacts and/or indirect economic costs of estimated and projected climate impacts. Planned relocation, also referred to as managed retreat, is typically initiated, supervised and/or implemented by public, private and civic stakeholders and involves small communities and individual assets but may also involve large populations. (NCA5 Glossary)
Project Governance:
In general, this term refers to guidance given on how projects may be managed and monitored. The nature of project governance is subject to the programmatic requirements and policy needs of the program. Governance is also defined as the processes and structures that steer society and the multiplicity of actors who are involved. Institutional arrangements of governance comprise the sets of rules, norms and shared practices that underlie decision-making. (NCA5 Glossary)
R
Resilient Construction Materials:
Materials or products that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen communities’ resilience to the impacts of climate change, which can be used to maintain, update and expand built infrastructure. This could include whole building/whole project strategies such as using low embodied carbon materials, salvaged material, adaptive reuse, material-efficient design, extended material replacement timelines (e.g., durability) and design for flexibility, adaptability, and disassembly. ( FWA DOT Sustainable Pavements Program (pdf) )
S
Sea Level Rise:
Increase to the height of sea level, both globally and locally (relative sea level change) due to a change in ocean volume as a result of a change in the mass of water in the ocean (e.g., due to melt of glaciers and ice sheets), changes in ocean volume as a result of changes in ocean water density (e.g., expansion under warmer conditions), changes in the shape of the ocean basins, and changes in Earth’s gravitational and rotational fields, as well as local subsidence or uplift of the land. (NCA5 Glossary)
T
Transformative Adaptation:
Adaptation that changes the fundamental attributes of a social–ecological system, often involving persistent, novel and significant changes to institutions, behaviors, values, and/or technology in anticipation of climate change and its impacts. (NCA5 Glossary)
Tribal Mapping Tools:
These tools include the capability to view Tribal lands. For example, Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation is a Climate Hazard Screening tool that enables users to view mapped climate data by census tract, county, or Tribal land area.
U
Understanding Impacts Tools:
These tools provide general awareness of climate trends, stressors and impacts from hazards, as well as risk and/or vulnerability assessments. For example, they provide text summarizing climate impacts on different sectors, text or images summarizing climate trends in a region (e.g., National Climate Assessments, ARC-X).
V
Vulnerability Assessment:
Analyses that describe the vulnerabilities of a community, project, or geography to climate change. This could include limitations in adaptive capacity and resilience, the disproportionate impacts climate change has on certain communities and the costs associated with implementing changes are also vulnerabilities people, places and projects. ( EPA Climate Adaptation Plan - 2021 (pdf) )
Vulnerable Community:
Communities of people who face disproportionate and unequal risks from projected and realized climate change impacts and who are least able to anticipate, cope with and recover from these adverse impacts. socioeconomic factors may include, but are not limited to, income, educational attainment, race and ethnicity and age. (NCA5 Glossary)
W
Water Efficiency:
The use of improved technologies and practices to deliver equal or better services with less water. Water efficiency encompasses conservation and reuse efforts, as well as water loss reduction and prevention, to protect water resources for the future. ( EPA CWSFR Guidance for Determining Project Eligibility (pdf) )
Wildfire:
A wildland fire originating from an unplanned ignition, such as lightning, volcanos, unauthorized and accidental human-caused fires, and prescribed fires that are declared wildfires. (NCA5 Glossary)
Workforce (Development):
Hiring protocols that align with the Administration's goals of creating jobs for more Americans and the Administration’s equity and environmental justice goals, including by removing barriers for access, providing more opportunities for underserved communities and supporting the creation of high-quality and well-paying jobs, including union jobs, for people who are part of communities with environmental justice concerns. (EPA Innovative Water Infrastructure Workforce Development Program)
Z
Zero-Emissions Technology:
Any technological application or process that does not emit any air pollutants listed in Section 108(a) of the Clean Air Act, nor any precursors to such pollutants, and does not emit any greenhouse gases. This definition encompasses a broad range of technologies that operate without contributing to air pollution or the greenhouse effect, thereby supporting efforts to improve air quality and combat climate change. ( EPA’s Implementation Framework for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (pdf) )