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Community members and city leaders gathered during a listening session to identify key climate readiness needs in Erie, Pennsylvania during June of 2023. (Photo by
Sea Grant programs across the U.S. are scaling up capacity to support additional hands-on, collaborative engagement to advance the sustainability of coastal and Great Lakes communities. Sea Grant awarded $4 million in fiscal year 2023 funds to its grant-based programs nationwide to continue or expand ongoing work or address new opportunities for coastal climate adaptation and resilience for the communities that Sea Grant serves.
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For the second time, NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program and Office of Response and Restoration’s (OR&R) Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) have partnered to competitively solicit and select projects to support innovative all-hazard preparedness, response, and recovery initiatives for coastal communities.
Those interested in monitoring shoreline change in their communities have a new resource to help them get started – a web-based inventory of citizen science efforts to track coastal change in the U.S. The site, Communities Tracking Coastal Change, was created by NOAA Climate Program Office’s Coastal Inundation Risk Team and Woods Hole Sea Grant.
Georgia Sea Grant secured funding from the Department of Defense and the National Sea Grant College Program to hire Michelle Covi as the country’s first Coastal Resilience DOD Liaison in 2021. For the last year, Covi has created a suite of reports and resources that are now being used by Sea Grant programs, military installations, and coastal resilience specialists across the region to inform collaborative resilience projects.
Four Connecticut cities have joined a pilot project to boost community participation in climate change planning. Community activities in Bridgeport, New Haven, New London and Norwich are being led by Connecticut Sea Grant with support from NOAA, and will focus on climate risk communication and planning for community resilience.
Community planners and decision makers now have an application guide to help them plan for the significant sea level rise the United States is expected to see in the next 30 years. The guide is a response to the 2022 Interagency Sea Level Rise report, which projected about a foot of higher waters, on average, along U.S. coastlines by 2050.Â
In honor of Women’s History Month, get to know one of the many Women of Sea Grant, Renee Collini. Renee is a Coastal Climate Resilience Specialist with Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, Florida Sea Grant and Mississippi State University.
Questions poured in by the dozen after the morning session of the 2015 Adapt CT legal workshop—six pages worth, in fact. The workshop was part of a series on climate adaptation hosted by Connecticut Sea Grant and the UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research, known as CLEAR, through their joint organization Adapt CT. Legal issues had starkly emerged as another area being reshaped by the broad sweep of the changing climate, as effects are felt across fisheries, agriculture, health, infrastructure, wildlife and economies.
This summer on Bradford Beach in Milwaukee, swimmers might notice people in light blue T-shirts pushing an ice cream cart across the sand. Instead of frozen treats, the cart contains brochures and other information that beachgoers need to keep safe. The cart is part of a new Beach Ambassador Pilot Project run by Wisconsin Sea Grant, Milwaukee Water Commons, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Coastline Services LLC and the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center.
It’s almost time for summer fun outdoors and on the water, and that means it’s time to remember, safety first! Sea Grant programs across the nation share information and advice related to safe practices in coastal environments.
Scientist Carrie Garrison-Laney, a coastal hazards specialist for Washington Sea Grant and liason to the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, pieces together stories of past tsunamis in the Pacific Northwest. Understanding the destruction caused by past tsunamis can prepare vulnerable coastal communities for future events.Â
A Wisconsin Sea Grant and National Weather Service collaborative project seeks to answer the question: Why are the economically disadvantaged more likely to be negatively affected by severe weather? It adds to the Weather Ready Nation initiative.
Sea Grant programs in the Gulf of Mexico and Georgia help communities better understand how to create a Program for Public Information (PPI) and earn outreach points under the National Flood Insurance Program’s Community Rating System (CRS). Points earned through the CRS help improve a community’s rating and can lead to discounted flood insurance premiums.
University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant is working with researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research to better understand how to communicate hurricane risks so that the public will take necessary precautions before a storm.
Paul C. Focazio, New York Sea Grant Five years post-Sandy, Helen Cheng says the superstorm “still looms in the memories of our stakeholders, but I’m