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The American Shore & Beach Preservation Association’s National Coastal Conference welcomes all coastal stakeholders and managers to learn the latest science, engineering and policy needed
The NOAA Office for Coastal Management’s Climate Resilience Regional Challenge is funding projects to increase resilience to extreme weather events and address longer-term, chronic climate hazards. This one-time, $575 million competitive grant program is providing the opportunity to collaboratively implement transformational regional projects that will build immediate and long-term resilience in coastal areas.
For the third year in a row, NOAA’s Office Response and Restoration (OR&R) and National Sea Grant College Program (Sea Grant) are partnering to support coastal communities to prepare for, respond to and recover from natural or human-caused disasters. A total of $791,395 in fiscal year 2024 federal funds is anticipated to support four projects over two years in Alaska, Connecticut, the Northern Gulf of Mexico region and South Carolina, focused on strengthening local disaster readiness and recovery in underserved communities.
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
Today, the Department of Commerce and NOAA announced $60 million in funding to help train and place people in jobs that advance a climate-ready workforce for coastal and Great Lakes states, Tribes and Territories as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda under the Inflation Reduction Act. To date, awards like these from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda have created more than 270,000 jobs across the country.
The funding will support nine projects around the nation, with $50 million going directly to the projects and $10 million for technical assistance to support the grantees.
The Lake Erie Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) Seasonal Forecast, produced by NOAA and released with Ohio Sea Grant, gives coastal managers, lake users, and drinking water facility operators a general sense of the potential severity of the upcoming bloom season. NOAA is forecasting a large bloom for 2019, with a severity index greater than 7. The index is based on the bloom’s biomass – the amount of harmful or toxic algae – over a sustained period. Last year’s bloom had a severity of 3.6 and the 2017 bloom had a severity of 8.
During Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW) 2019, Sea Grant and the Women’s Aquatic Network collaborated to host a brown bag lunch session on Increasing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Coastal, Marine and Ocean Science Workforce. Four panelists, including those from government and non-government sectors, offered inspiring, specific and candid remarks during the packed session, which had standing room only.
Acting NOAA Administrator RDML Timothy Gallaudet visited Maryland Sea Grant and IMET in May 2018 for a discussion focused on aquaculture research and how the partners are advancing diversity in the marine sciences.
Knowledge, Spread Wisely: Sea Grant Evaluation Shows National Weather Service Forecast is Assisting Farmers in Protecting Wisconsin Waters
The Aua transect on Tutuila island in the remote island territory of American Samoa recently celebrated its 100th anniversary, and scientists from throughout the region traveled to the island to celebrate and conduct the 100th year transect survey.
The highest mean water levels ever recorded in Hawai'i occurred in April 2017. Scientists with the University of Hawaii and Sea Grant predict there is more to come and provide early notice to help communities prepare.
It seems like the premise of a horror movie: giant armies of purple sea urchins mysteriously congregating, marching across the sea floor, and mowing down entire kelp forests. But alas, this is no movie.
Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography entered their fourth year of black gill research with the introduction of a new smartphone app that will allow shrimpers to help scientists collect data on the problem.
Washington Sea Grant and its partners LEED the way for waterfront dwellers trying to restore their shorelines.
South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium and National Estuarine Research Reserves partner to cultivate learning through artistic expression and hands-on ecosystem restoration.
The National Sea Grant Law Center is supporting the protection of aquatic ecosystems through a multi-state initiative that is transforming aquatic invasive species management in the western United States.
Some lawn care practices intended to get that lush green grass can affect nearby rivers and bays, but new research indicates that homeowners in the Northeast are willing to make changes to their lawn care routine to help protect the environment.
North Carolina creates synergy between its Sea Grant and Water Resources Research Institute programs.
Sea Grant enhances the mission of the National Weather Service by informing communication and educating the public on weather hazards.
Thousands of samples from the Deepwater Horizon spill are available to the wider scientific community. Information about the samples, and results of their prior analyses can be found through the Deepwater Horizon DIVER data platform. Requests for samples must be received by June 10, 2016.
Lake Champlain Sea Grant sponsored a trip to the University of New Hampshire Stormwater Research Center. The information being utilized by researchers and government agencies in Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire.
Sea Grant has extension agents at multiple NOAA laboratories across the country. Rochelle Sturtevant is Sea Grant's Great Lakes Regional Extension Specialist and is based at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Michigan.
In January 2016, the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program will host the sixth Alaska Young Fishermen's Summit. AYFS offers leadership training, networking capacity and opportunities for fishermen under 40 and/or in the business for less than five years.
Sea Grant has extension agents at multiple NOAA laboratories across the country. Kodi Nemunaitis-Monroe is Sea Grant's Weather and Climate Extension Agent and is based at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Oklahoma.
With a new Georgia Seafood Directory and research on the local food movement, Georgia Sea Grant is helping the state's fisheries tap into larger inland markets.
USC Sea Grant is building capacity for a community network to monitor harmful algal blooms in Southern California. HABwatch trains citizen scientists, contributes valuable data to research, and connects scientists with the community.
Woods Hole Sea Grant funded a climate adaptation project designed to provide regional and local predictions of future coastal storm activity and sea-level rise to user groups within the region and to promote wise utilization and conservation of resources.
Rhode Island’s Ocean Special Area Management Plan, developed in part by Rhode Island Sea Grant, helped identify areas suitable for offshore windfarm construction and expedited the permitting process, putting Rhode Island on a path to developing the first offshore wind farm in the U.S.
North Carolina Sea Grant works with citizen scientists to collect data on an invasive aquatic plant and with state partners to raise awareness on the threat that the plant presents in North Carolina.
A symposium at Hofstra University was held to share a NOAA Coastal Storm Awareness Program-funded project that explored the cultural and language barriers that may have hindered evacuation efforts in Long Beach, NY.
Sea Grant-NMFS Fellows gather in Miami for an annual symposium.
The Governors’ South Atlantic Alliance (GSAA) Data Portal is an online toolkit and resource center that consolidates available state, regional, and federal datasets into one location for Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. This allows users of the Portal to learn about the region’s data resources, explore a robust repository, and visualize these data via the Portal tools. Developed by the Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA) with NOAA support through the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium, the GSAA Portal provides a foundation for long-term collaborative planning in the South Atlantic region for a wide range of coastal uses.
The Southeast and Caribbean Climate Community of Practice (CoP) brings together individuals from local, state, and federal governments, academia, non-profit organizations and the private sector in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and the Caribbean to apply climate science and assess how coastal communities and ecosystems can adapt to the impacts of climate variability and change. The CoP provides a forum for sharing lessons learned and best practices related to climate communication and adaptation. The CoP also provides education and networking opportunities to its members and their stakeholders to increase knowledge and awareness of climate science and to coordinate and perform outreach, extension, and communication related to climate change and its impacts in the Southeast and Caribbean region.
South Carolina Sea Grant The S.C. Sea Grant Consortium, in partnership with the Social and Environmental Research Institute, is working with blue crab fishermen in
Is there room on the water for everybody? If coastal communities are to remain sustainable, residents, visitors, policy makers, and regulators need new methods and information sources to harmonize the growing demand for access to their beaches and waterways. Researchers and extension specialists at Florida Sea Grant are making that challenge a priority.
Connecticut Sea Grant assists aquaculture industry, bringing policy makers and stakeholders together, netting new benefits for ocean crop loss.
Alaska Natives are witnessing climate changing the ecology around their communities. Three southwestern communities are partnering with Alaska Sea Grant researchers to share their traditional hunting knowledge in an effort to conserve their marine environment.
Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory agent Terry Johnson and others assisted the village of Shaktoolik with planning and implementing measures to “defend in place” against coastal storms.
Through the Vulnerability, Consequences, and Adaptation Planning Scenarios (VCAPS) process, North Carolina Sea Grant provides a variety of research and capacity-building initiatives to assist communities in assessing risks and providing support for developing approaches to manage that risk as appropriate.
Virginia Sea Grant helps fellows connect their research with end-users giving them the opportunity to experience the importance of considering stakeholder engagement from start to finish.
The emerging human wellbeing model is a comprehensive look at the material, relational, and subjective ways that the socioeconomic wellbeing of individuals and communities is tied to marine and coastal resources. The model provides a process for selecting indicators to measure human wellbeing.
Using South Kingstown Land Trust as a pilot, tools have been identified for use by local conservation organizations in Rhode Island and beyond to assess vulnerability and identify strategies to begin to implement adaptation actions through conservation, management, and investment.
The Maine Beaches Conference provides continuing opportunities for communication and exchange of the most current information among beach stakeholders with diverse interests, and presents the findings from the state’s beach monitoring programs.
The Chester Climate Adaptation Team, including Pennsylvania Sea Grant, has the capacity to assist with community engagement to assess climate vulnerabilities, consider solutions, and to plan steps for a more resilient community.
This workshop series featured municipal officials who survived Superstorm Sandy and Maine municipal officials and residents from Wells, Saco and Old Orchard Beach who traveled to New Jersey to see the aftermath of the storm first hand. During “The Sandy Dialogues” workshops in Wells and Saco presenters shared personal experiences about the storm, its aftermath and recovery.
This nationwide effort implemented in the Pacific Islands Region funded several projects that foster community resiliency through outreach, education, and product development.
The Texas Coastal Planning Program helps community leaders through workshops that help them determine their readiness and plan for future needs with respect to coastal hazards, green infrastructure, water quality impairment and other issues related to sustainable development.
This affordable public participation tool, developed by Texas Sea Grant's Texas Coastal Watershed Program, allows teams to collaboratively explore and use computer-based data and programs in a workshop setting.
The Climate Community of Practice brings together extension, outreach and education professionals and community officials in the Gulf to learn how coastal communities can adapt to sea-level rise, precipitation changes and other climate-related issues.
Oregon Sea Grant is planning a workshop for December that will bring together a network of coastal resilience researchers and practitioners to begin developing a broader statewide collaborative network of those interested in and working on coastal resilience issues.
Oregon Sea Grant offers facilitation services that guide dialogue in the process of making important decisions about coastal planning and we serve as a bridge between university resources and local end users.
MIT Sea Grant (MITSG) recently hosted the Climate Change Symposium on Sustaining Coastal Cities, a three-day conference that brought together regional partners and stakeholders from academia, non-profit organizations, federal, state, and local governments, to discuss major issues and facilitate regional collaborations.
Pennsylvania Sea Grant helped students at Mercyhusrt University complete a year long social change campaign to educate their college community about the issues involved in pharmaceutical and personal care product use and disposal.
In an effort to comprehensively and accurately assess the risks of future coastal hazards and the vulnerability of the community, the project included the following key steps: (1) mapping of projected sea level rise (SLR) scenarios to provide a baseline assessment of the potential impacts of inundation due to SLR, (2) modeling and mapping potential coastal hazards under elevated sea level conditions, specifically (a) tsunami inundation and (b) hurricane storm surge inundation, and (3) a socio-economic exposure analysis of the above inundation zones, as well as a 500-year flood hazard zone.
Connecticut Sea Grant partnered with the University of Connecticut Law School and the National Sea Grant Law Center to hold two conferences on resilience
The National Weather Service selected the Sea Grant Great Lakes Social Science Network to assess the Impact-based Warning System because of Sea Grant strong reputation for engaging local, sometimes hard to reach, communities.
Looking to improve water quality both locally in the river and as part of a regional effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the town of Laurel, Delaware is reimagining its historic riverfront with help from the Delaware Sea Grant College Program and University of Delaware landscape design faculty and students.
It might seem incongruous to talk of traffic disputes and costly collisions in an area as vast as the waters off the Pacific coast. But that’s the situation that afflicted the coast’s tribal and commercial crab fishers and its tug-and-barge and shipping operators for decades as they shared the same sealanes.
Kodi Monroe is a Weather and Climate Extension Agent at the NOAA-funded Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) and is affiliated with the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma.
Sea Grant extension staff are tapping into a valuable resource — their out-of-state colleagues — to help generate new ideas for their own program’s efforts and improve collaboration within the nationwide Sea Grant network.
North Carolina Sea Grant has brought together scientists and commercial fishermen to understand the black sea bass population in the South Atlantic. The studies have led to increased catch limits and gear that keeps legal-sized fish while letting out undersized sea bass.
Steve Jones Associated Director of New Hampshire Sea Grant founded the Coastal Research Volunteers with the goal to provide volunteers with opportunities to engage in meaningful science and to benefit scientific research in the region. The program has been going strong for three years and is an overwhelming success, with volunteers helping researchers collect data they would otherwise be unable to collect.
Staff and stakeholders of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) held a congressional briefing on NOAA’s role in supporting coastal communities before, during, and after Sandy’s impact.
Florida Sea Grant brought together a team of researchers, agency scientists and industry leaders to understand the decline of the Apalachicola oyster fishery and to identify a strategy for efficient recovery.
Maine Sea Grant is helping to train lobstermen and other commercial fishermen on aquaculture techniques and business.
This is art 2 in a 3 part series 'Selecting a Better Oyster'. Virginia Sea Grant-funded research gets more profitable oysters in the hands of growers.
