This winter we mentioned an earlier draft of the Best Practices Manual for Development in Coastal Louisiana, but the final version is out now, and it looks great. You can find it on the project’s website. Even if you’re not in Louisiana, it’s worth a look.
Archive | National
New Tool to Easily View Future Sea Levels
Posted on July 16, 2012
The United State Army Corps of Engineers has released a handy tool for calculating future sea levels based on models or rates that you pick. The process couldn’t be easier. Head over to their Comprehensive Evaluation of Projects with Respect to Sea-Level Change page. Either enter the rates you’d like to use, or select from […]
NFIP Extended for 5 Years with Changes
Posted on July 10, 2012
Last Friday the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2012 was signed into law. The law extends the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for five years and makes reforms to the program. One of the biggest changes for hurricane-prone areas is the cleverly named “Consumer Option for an Alternative System to Allocate Losses” […]
Mid to North Atlantic SLR “like a car on a highway jamming on the accelerator”
Posted on July 2, 2012
A new article finds that sea level rise is happening faster, and sometimes far faster, in the middle to northern stretches of the US Atlantic Coast than in the ocean basin as a whole. How much faster? The currently accelerated rate could add nearly an extra foot of sea level rise by the end of […]
Mississippi to Pilot Disaster Preparadness Program in School Curriculum
Posted on June 25, 2012
Good news from Mississippi: MEMA [Mississippi Emergency Management Agency] would like to begin a pilot program in several schools that would weave the teaching of disaster preparedness into the normal curriculum. For example, the program could be similar to the fire services successful campaign about fire prevention, Latham said. “There’s probably not a child in […]
Climate Outreach for Business and Industry
Posted on June 12, 2012
Need to do climate outreach to your local businesses? A newly released guide covers climate threats to the agriculture, food and beverage, apparel, electric, insurance, mining, oil and gas, and tourism sectors. The guide provides detailed checklists that companies should use to assess, manage and disclose physical risks they face from climate change. Sound useful? […]
New Inundation Analysis Tool Released
Posted on May 30, 2012
There’s a lot of evidence that the future in coastal areas will look a lot like the past, only with more bad times. That once a century event might be more like once a decade by 2100. And brace for that “once a decade storm” — it may soon hit every few years. If this […]
Historical and Legal Context for Rhode Island’s Erosion Woes
Posted on May 15, 2012
Insightful thoughts submitted by attorney and Natural Hazard Mitigation Association President Ed Thomas on the NYT Rhode Island article I mentioned yesterday: This extremely important article displays a thoughtful approach to 1) the questions of what we should do about sea level rise and beach erosion; 2) the very real problems we face as a […]
As the Sea Moves Closer, Rhode Island Community Contemplates Retreat
Posted on May 14, 2012
So many striking quotes in this New York Times article, including this one from the frustrated president of the local homeowners’ association: “If we keep doing this [nothing/retreating], Rhode Island will be gone. We’re trying to find a balance. We’re not killing baby seals out here.” What strikes me most about this is how very […]
New NOAA Report Records States’ Coastal No-Build Areas
Posted on May 4, 2012
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 […]