As of 2014, NOAA estimated that about 40 percent of the US population lives in a county on the coast and these coastal counties are responsible for 56 million jobs. As a nation, we have developed heavily along the coastlines, … Read more

Guest post by David Salvesen and Christian Kamrath Hurricane Matthew, which struck North Carolina in October 2016, reminded us of just how vulnerable North Carolina is to flooding.  Torrential rains caused severe flooding that breached levees, closed major roads and … Read more

The UNC Environmental Finance Center (EFC) typically focuses on the role of local governments in directly providing and funding basic community environmental services such as water, wastewater, stormwater, and solid waste management. For example, the EFC recently released a set … Read more

How Carrboro’s creation of a Stormwater Management Utility exemplifies the increasing need for stormwater finance options. Effective July 1, 2017, the Town of Carrboro followed in the footsteps of local governments across North Carolina, such as the City of Hendersonville, … Read more

The 2017 U.S. Atlantic hurricane season is officially the most expensive ever, amounting to $202.6 billion in damages across the Atlantic basin. This record-breaking hurricane season brought some of the most catastrophic storms in recent memory. As Hurricane Katrina reshaped … Read more

Throughout 2017, there has been discussion in Congress surrounding the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which is set to expire tomorrow, Dec. 8. The program was established in 1968 as a service to at-risk communities by providing flood insurance in … Read more

In order to better understand the stormwater finance and governance landscape, the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently inventoried and analyzed the stormwater fees used by 74 municipalities and three counties charging stormwater … Read more

Stormwater incentive programs are a creative tool used by some towns and cities to encourage community participation in stormwater management practices. Many of the incentive programs encourage citizens to install green stormwater infrastructure projects on their property. Stormwater ‘incentive’ programs … Read more

Guest post by Reed Perry, a Master of Environmental Management candidate at the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment. A $25 million dollar Environmental Impact Bond (EIB) issued by DC Water last year has captured the attention of environmental … Read more

Millions of United States citizens continue to battle the effects of massive hurricanes this month. Many have lost electric and water service. As water and wastewater utilities struggle to get their systems up and running again, some are in a … Read more