To prepare your home for potential flooding, start with preventive measures in the basement. You can waterproof your basement by sealing foundation cracks and installing a sump pump, ideally with a backup power supply. To protect vital building systems from water damage, you can elevate or relocate appliances such as your air conditioner, hot water heater, and furnace.

Improve drainage around your home’s foundation by grading away from your foundation and cleaning gutters and downspouts regularly. Replace impervious surfaces with permeable pavers, gravel, or vegetated areas in order to allow for rainwater infiltration.

Consider installing green infrastructure to soak up rainwater: canopy trees, rain gardens, rain barrels, and pollinator gardens can help capture rainwater, reduce erosion, and, in the case of pollinator gardens, support biodiversity.

Understand what your homeowner’s insurance covers; a standard homeowner’s insurance policy does not cover losses from flooding. Losses related to wind damage are usually covered, but your policy may require payment of a separate wind deductible. Consider whether you want or need a flood insurance policy, and learn more about purchasing flood insurance from Mass.gov and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).

As essential green infrastructure, trees provide critical public services, including managing stormwater, cooling urban areas, improving air quality, and storing carbon. Crucially, mature trees sequester disproportionately more carbon from the atmosphere than younger trees. Therefore, protecting existing trees and forests maintains these benefits while simultaneously preventing the immediate release of stored carbon that occurs when they are cut or burned. To preserve this healthy canopy and increase its longevity, the following practices are recommended:

• Prune dead or diseased branches. Proper pruning encourages strong structural development, improves the tree’s wind resistance, and reduces the risk of tree failure.

• Use proper mulching techniques. Mulch should not contact the trunk of the tree to avoid covering the root flare (where the trunk widens to meet the roots).

• Water your trees during dry periods. Water slowly and deeply so water percolates down into the soil, giving one or two deep waterings rather than several light ones (see more from Morton Arboretum).

• Keep a watchful eye and consider an annual arborist wellness check.

Importantly, the shade from trees reduces demand for air conditioning. Strategically planting high-canopy, deciduous trees on the south and west sides of your home is a highly effective way to save energy: they block the summer sun while allowing passive solar warming in the winter. Future solar panel placement may be a consideration in determining location and species selection (future height) when planting new trees. Conversely, don’t over-prune existing mature trees to maximize output of new solar; the incremental output may not offset the stormwater retention, cooling and air quality benefits of a healthy tree.

Ecological landscaping is an approach to landscaping that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity. Some landscaping practices that have become standard nowadays are actually doing long term damage to our soils, air, and water. For this reason, many eco-landscaping tips are about doing less. For example, the ‘leave the leaves’ campaign encourages home landscapers to let fall leaves break down naturally, covering bare soils and rebalancing soil biology.

Save and capture rainwater. Replace impervious surfaces with permeable hardscaping or vegetated areas to allow for rainwater infiltration. Green infrastructure features like rain gardens and bioswales can capture rainwater, reduce soil erosion, and support biodiversity all at the same time.

Reduce lawn areas in favor of biodiverse planting beds. Strategically placed planting beds can greatly reduce the need for mowing. (A mowing regime can be time-consuming and expensive, and chemical inputs are often used.) Diverse native plantings from trees to shrubs to perennial flowers and herbaceous plants support other forms of life like birds, mammals, and microbes. This climate-smart planting guide from the Boston Globe offers a useful resource for planting meadow, pollinator, rain, and shady gardens with resilient species.

By reducing electricity consumption during peak hours, you lessen “peak demand” for power (which in Massachusetts is often generated by older, less efficient fossil fuel plants) and limit transmission requirements. Reducing demand during extreme weather events strengthens the grid’s resilience at those times.

Use appliances such as washers, dryers and dishwashers later at night (i.e., midnight to 5AM) when demand for electricity is low. Using electricity when demand is high requires additional power from less efficient fossil fuel power plants. Also consider precooling your home in the morning with air conditioning and then using fans in the afternoon, charging your EV overnight, and having cold meals on hot days.

Sign up for peak alerts so you can plan ahead and reduce your electricity use (and avoid high demand charges!). If you have a home battery storage system, consider enrolling in Eversource’s ConnectedSolutions Demand Response program, which offers incentives for allowing Eversource to use the energy stored in your battery during periods of high demand.

Social resilience refers to strong social connections, access to resources, and community preparedness, all of which are essential in the event of natural disasters, social crises, and other emergencies. One way to strengthen our community’s resilience is to learn who in your neighborhood (or religious organization, club, class, or other group) is especially vulnerable to extreme heat, has a flood-prone basement, doesn’t have access to backup power, or may otherwise need assistance during an extreme weather event. Then, help connect them to resources if possible, and importantly, check on them during climate disruptions.