Digital Coast Partnership: Building Coastal Resilience

Supporting coastal communities to improve flood resilience at local scales is more important than ever. Fortunately, NOAA's Office for Coastal Management, along with the eight national Digital Coast partner organizations,  is already hard at work addressing flooding concerns on our coasts. This page highlights several examples of on-the-ground collaborative projects that work toward this goal through  NOAA's Digital Coast Partnership  by leveraging the expertise of many sectors to provide well-rounded strategies to create more resilient coastal communities.*

Coastal flooding is  increasingly threatening coastal communities  and is predicted to become an even greater hazard in coming years, presenting a serious challenge for people and economies.

• Nearly  22 percent  of individuals living in coastal counties are considered socially vulnerable as defined by the  U.S. Census Community Resilience Estimates  (excluding U.S. territories).
• From 1970 to 2010 there has been an  89 percent increase  in coastal population over age 65. The number of potentially exposed senior facilities has also increased.
• The number of affordable housing units at risk from coastal flooding is expected to  more than triple  in the coming decades and will include every coastal state by the year by 2050.

In the Gulf of Mexico, all five Gulf states rank in the top 20 in terms of number of flood insurance policyholders. Policyholders in Florida, Texas, and Louisiana hold the most flood insurance policies in the nation, with a combined total representing 60 percent of flood insurance policies nationwide,  according to FEMA statistics . To lower flood insurance premiums, one option communities have is participation in the National Flood Insurance Program's  Community Rating System . This section details efforts led by The Nature Conservancy to help three communities in the Gulf—Rockport and Aransas County, Texas, and Jefferson County, Florida—do exactly that. 

1. With assistance from the project team, the communities used  NOAA's Open Space GIS Workflow  to map and calculate the area of preserved open space in the floodplain.
2. The Nature Conservancy led workshops in each community that focused on incorporating the results from the workflow into The Nature Conservancy's Community Rating System Explorer to better visualize open space preservation areas and identify future areas that might be eligible for Community Rating System credit if they are protected.

• Lead: The Nature Conservancy
• Technical assistance from NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management
• Community engagement, content, and outreach from 
  • National Estuarine Research Reserve Association 
  • Coastal States Organization 
  • Association of State Floodplain Managers 
  • American Planning Association

The map below details the communities involved in this project as well as some of the outcomes from the workshops. Efforts in Texas are ongoing, as the Texas chapter of TNC is working to develop a statewide Community Rating System (CRS) strategy.

In August 2024, a fellow participating in the Digital Coast Fellowship joined The Nature Conservancy to build upon the work started by this project. His efforts will help achieve The Nature Conservancy's 2030 conservation goals along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

In 2021, Hurricane Ida caused massive flooding and devastation in the mid-Atlantic, including in Wilmington, Delaware. A local resident, inspired by this catastrophic event and her lived experience with this flood, created the  Delaware Resilience Hub . The Hub provides community resources for disaster preparedness and assistance before, during, and after emergency events.

The Hub existed prior to being a part of the Digital Coast Partnership efforts but, by engaging with the Connects program, is able to sustain operations and build upon community engagement and training programs. Key efforts that are currently ongoing include:

1. Trainings for disaster preparedness for community members
2. Build more awareness and educate the community on disasters
3. Creation and distribution of resilience kits in association with training events
4. Shelter services during hazardous events. Note that these are not limited to flood events. For example, during the summer of 2024 the Hub was able to provide shelter during heat waves.

• Coastal States Organization

This effort is ongoing. Recent accomplishments related to flooding include:

• Preparing vulnerable seniors for future floods:
  • Educating them to be able to recognize the warning signs of floods
  • Training them on preparedness kits and giving them a kit afterward
  • This summer alone, the Hub has given out 500 kits to the most vulnerable populations and will continue to do work on this going forward.
• Assessing the possibility of an environmental community connector, a central location for all groups working on climate and environmental issues to train and educate their communities

There are exciting efforts on the horizon to build upon existing flood solutions. One example being the Association of State Floodplain Managers' efforts to update their Coastal No Adverse Impact Guide to better educate and train practitioners in their flood risk reduction and resiliency efforts. Furthermore, the Coastal No Adverse Impact resources largely exist as PDFs with ad hoc trainings which are not the most effective for practitioners.

This is a proposed two-year project with the following objectives. Additional details will be provided after the proposal becomes active.

• Lead: Association of State Floodplain Managers
• Support from
  • NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management
  • Coastal States Organization
  • American Planning Association
  • Urban Land Institute 
  • National Estuarine Research Reserve Association
  • The Nature Conservancy

The work on this effort is currently in the development phase. Stay tuned for updates as this project evolves and community engagement efforts get underway!

In August 2024, Allie Pouliot, a fellow participating in the Digital Coast Fellowship, joined two partner organizations, the Coastal States Organization and the Association of State Floodplain Managers, to assist in updating the Coastal No Adverse Impact Guide. Allie's efforts so far include performing a needs analysis on stakeholder desires for the guide and building on-demand training modules for a subset of the Coastal No Adverse Impact efforts to serve as templates for the rest of the work. She is working in the Great Lakes region.

What do all of the highlighted projects have in common? They exist as a result of the  Digital Coast Partnership .

Coastal issues are not contained to single federal, state, or local jurisdictions. As a result, the Digital Coast Partnership was developed to address complex coastal issues by engaging organizations with a wide range of policy and technical expertise. At present, the partnership consists of eight nongovernmental member organizations who connect through the Digital Coast Connects or Digital Coast Fellowship efforts.

Digital Coast Connects aims to locally "connect" partner organizations. Connects projects are conducted with input from multiple partners to provide on-the-ground assistance to coastal communities.

The Digital Coast Fellowship began in 2012 and provides on-the-job training and cross-organizational networking to postgraduate students through a two-year placement with one of the eight partner organizations. Up to three fellows are placed with a partner every other year.

• 7 Funded Digital Coast Connects Projects
  • 4 projects currently working with marginalized communities
  • 2 projects complete
  • 1 project on the horizon
• 17 Digital Coast Fellows have provided technical assistance to Digital Coast partners
  • 2 current fellows started their program in August 2024 (included in the above 17)

The Digital Coast Partnership has achieved a number of broad reaching accomplishments to date, some of which are highlighted in the  Digital Coast Partnership FAQs . The partnership is made successful through regular communication and shared expertise among the partners.

The Digital Coast Partnership serves as a voice for coastal communities* in various regions across the United States. Their impacts have been felt across the coastal zone and will continue to grow in the years to come. To learn more about the Digital Coast Partnership, partner organizations, or to contact us, please visit the Digital Coast website or fill out the inquiry form at the bottom of this page to get in touch with NOAA's Office for Coastal Management staff.

*Delineates messaging that was compiled by NERRA through discussions with the Digital Coast Partners as a way to convey information about the Partnership.