Tag Archives | publications

New NOAA Report Records States’ Coastal No-Build Areas

Today, NOAA’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management has released “Protecting the Public Interest through the National Coastal Zone Management Program: How Coastal States and Territories Use No-Build Areas along Ocean and Great Lake Shorefronts.” From NOAA: In the face of continued population growth and increasing economic activity along our nation’s coasts, more devastating […]

Best Practices for Coastal Louisiana Manual not just for Louisiana

The Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) recently released the Best Practices Manual for Development in Coastal Louisiana website. What’s novel about this site is that it provides strategies for creating sustainable and resilient coastal communities based on “geotypes” (pick from chenier plain, alluvium, upper riverbanks, middle riverbanks, […]

NOAA Releases New Storm Surge Brochure

NOAA’s National Hurricane Center Storm Surge Unit has put together a new brochure explaining the what storm surge is and how to best measure it. There’s nothing here on how to prevent losses, but the before/after shots (on page 3) should motivate some people to think about how we need to plan for it. Added […]

Check out the New and Improved Coastal Community Resilience Index

We at StormSmart are big fans of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium’s Coastal Community Resilience Index. For those not familiar with it, the Coastal Community Resilience Index (CRI) is a simple tool that provides a snapshot of a community’s resilience, and can help identify opportunities to improve. Designed to take as little as two hours […]

Need an Example? Check Out this Climate Change Adaptation Plan

Not sure how to get started on a climate change adaptation plan? Have a look at what the San Francisco Bay area has drafted with their new “Climate Change Hits Home” report. The plan includes: Anticipated regional impacts Vulnerable areas and adaptation strategies (includes public safety and health, transportation, ecosystems and biodiversity, energy, water management, […]

Rolling Easements: Finally, a Long-Term Approach for Rising Seas and Coastal Erosion?

It’s not hard to get overwhelmed when considering your community’s current flood and erosion problems. Add in projections for what future climates will bring and it’s enough to make you want to just stay at home (at least until the sea comes into your home). Unfortunately, nobody has found a silver bullet to save coastal […]

New England Climate Change: What’s Happening and What You Can Do

Our southern neighbors at the The University of Rhode Island Climate Change Collaborative and Rhode Island Sea Grant have just released a short new brochure on what climate change could mean for New England communities, and what steps your community can take to prepare for it. In addition to a brief overview of current expectations […]

Want to Protect Your Community from Sea Level Rise? Protect Your Wetlands

When we first assembled the conceptual framework for StormSmart Coasts back in 2006, we made a deliberate decision to not focus on ecological and habitat issues. This wasn’t because we didn’t think these topics were important—clearly they were and are—but because we wanted to really zero in on hazards without getting entangled on all the […]

Great New Publication on Elevating Existing Homes

We all know that the best way to keep buildings out of flood waters is to keep them out of areas that flood. The reality for most communities, though, is that homes and other structures are already in areas that flood. What to do then? There are many options, of course. You could somehow acquire […]