Fifty years ago the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) was enacted ushering in a new era for the management of our nation’s coasts.  The purpose of the CZMA is to promote a balance between beneficial use of the coasts—including for recreation, tourism, public access, coastal dependent industries, and development—and the protection, conservation, restoration, and enhancement of coastal environments.

Today, 34 coastal states and territories have established CZMPs and there is a network of 30 research reserves. Over the past 50 years, the states and territories have used these CZMA tools to expand access for the public to our nation’s beaches, estuaries, waterfronts, and other coastal areas; protect and restore critical coastal habitats; lead research that has informed the implementation of new techniques, such as natural and nature-based solutions, for the management of estuaries and coasts; to manage development associated with continued population growth in coastal areas; and to educate and train local decisionmakers to address emerging coastal issues such as addressing risks associated with coastal hazards including sea level rise, erosion, inundation, and coastal storms.

Read the full statement of the CSO Executive Director on the 50th anniversary here.

Learn more about the CZMA, the state and territory programs, and the 50th anniversary here.

Ground Broken for Dredged Material Facility

Rainy weather did little to dampen spirits at the groundbreaking for the city’s new dredged material reclamation facility. Its construction was necessary after a law passed by the Ohio legislature went into effect, banning the open lake dumping of dredged material in an attempt to improve Lake Erie water quality. Scudder Mackey, chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Office of Coastal Management, said the project will provide a springboard for economic development in Conneaut and in the region. “I am really glad to see this project moving forward,” Mackey said. “We started this in 2015, with the help of the Lake Erie Initiative. The funds, $4 million, were granted in 2018, a lot of the original engineering and design work was accomplished. In 2021, we provided an additional $1.9 million and now we have the ARPA funding, that’s sort of the capstone, and allows this whole project to move forward.” Read more

US Supreme Court Won't Hear Lake Michigan Shoreline Dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court said it won’t hear a case over access to Lake Michigan’s shoreline. The announcement on Monday, once again, upholds the public’s right to use the beach in front of private property in Indiana. Read more

Stilt Homes, Raised Roads, Maybe A Huge Wall. Can Miami-Dade Stay Safe from Storm Surge?

Ever since Hurricane Andrew set the bar in 1992 for how much damage a storm could do in South Florida, Miami-Dade has avoided the direct path of any of the powerful hurricanes that have crisscrossed the peninsula in recent decades. But Hurricane Ian’s devastation on the Southwest Florida coast sent a chill up the spine of anyone in Miami worried about the next big one — and it sharpened the focus of federal planners working to design and build new barriers to avoid a similar outcome for Miami-Dade. “That storm is a reminder of the vulnerability that exists in Miami-Dade County and other coastal communities,” Michelle Hamor, chief of the planning and policy branch of the Army Corps of Engineers, said in a recent kickoff meeting to design a multibillion-dollar federal project to address a devastating hurricane threat often downplayed in Florida. Read more

Coastal Barriers Finally Begin to Rise Around NYC — But Can They Stop the Next Hurricane Sandy?

If Hurricane Sandy were to occur again today, many of the same coastal neighborhoods it destroyed would be inundated again. But a slate of climate infrastructure projects initiated in the aftermath of the storm are now — finally — making progress along the city’s waterfront Billions of dollars of seawalls, jetties, breakwaters, and reinforced dunes are being erected along the waterfronts of Staten Island, Manhattan, and the Rockaway Peninsula. These barriers promise to protect the coastline for several decades ahead, as sea levels rapidly rise and severe storms become more frequent. The entire 520-mile coastline of New York City faces an uncertain future amid these threats. Significant work has been completed on three of these ongoing projects, which will cost $1.9 billion in total: the East Side Coastal Resiliency project in Manhattan, the Living Breakwaters in Staten Island, and the Rockaways-Atlantic Shorefront project in Queens. Preparatory work has also begun for a seawall that will stretch along Staten Island’s east coast, and construction is expected to begin in the next few weeks on a coastal barrier in Battery Park City, as part of the South Battery Park City Resiliency project. In total, more than $4 billion of coastal barrier systems are currently being built in New York City, or are expected to break ground in the next two years. Read more

New Data from NOAA Provides Insight into How Flooding Affects Employment

A new NOAA dataset provides the number of businesses and employees, split out by industry, in inundation footprints modelled for hurricanes, tsunamis, and other flood hazards via the FEMA special flood hazard areas (sea level rise footprints coming soon). Learn more and check out the dataset here. NOAA is interested in hearing from newsletter readers who have used the data or are interested in using the data to inform their flood risk scenarios or in communicating with partners or members of the public. Please reach out to Polina Dineva for assistance or to share usage details.

Get the latest Davidson Fellowship News 

Meet the Margaret A. Davidson Fellows conducting research at the West Coast and Hawai'i national estuarine research reserves in this quarterly newsletter.

NOAA Adaptation Sciences (AdSci) Program FY2023 Funding Competition: Island Resilience

The NOAA Climate Program Office Adaptation Sciences (AdSci) Program is now accepting proposals for research projects beginning in Fiscal Year 2023. Through the FY2023 competition, NOAA’s AdSci Program is soliciting proposals for interdisciplinary and participatory research activities that address island-identified resilience needs in the Caribbean and Pacific; with an emphasis on projects that result in: (1) contextually relevant and usable information about climate impacts, vulnerabilities and solutions; (2) the evaluation, identification and strengthening of the adaptive capacities of institutions, communities, sectors and islands; (3) and/or the integration of climate information in adaptation planning, action and long-term resilience strategies. Full Applications are due by January 31, 2023. Learn more here.

FEMA Announces FY22 BRIC and FMA Notice of Funding Opportunities.

FEMA announced the FY22 Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFO) for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) and Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) programs. The funding level for BRIC has increased to $2.3 billion for FY22, with FMA funding increasing to $800 million. BRIC’s non-financial Direct Technical Assistance program will also increase to at least 40 communities (from 20) for the FY22 cycle. The application period closes on January 27, 2023. Learn more here.