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Climate Ready Estuaries

CRE shares NEP examples to help other coastal managers, and provides technical guidance and assistance about climate change adaptation.

This story map illustrates historical hurricane tracks, strike frequency, and potential areas of coastal flooding and inundation from storms by combining the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC’s) hurricane strike dataset.

What is Digital Coast?

This NOAA-sponsored website is focused on helping communities address coastal issues and has become one of the most-used resources in the coastal management community. The dynamic Digital Coast Partnership, whose members represent the website’s primary…

Association of State Floodplain Managers

The mission of ASFPM is to promote education, policies and activities that mitigate current and future losses, costs and human suffering caused by flooding, and to protect the natural and beneficial functions of floodplains –…

Western Kentucky University Stormwater Utility Survey 2019

This is a very exciting year for stormwater utilities. First, New London formed the first stormwater utility in Connecticut. Secondly, New Jersey passed a state law that allows communities to form stormwater utilities in the…

SeaLevelRise.org

People truly need to understand the causes of sea level rise and the impact it has on our communities. By working together, we can develop smart solutions to protect against this ever-growing problem. Our communities can make…

Flood IQ

Flood iQ covers the East coast and the Gulf coast, and visualizes your risk of sea level rise flooding today and up to 15 years in the future. It is a web based application created…

Flood Resilience Portal

The Flood Resilience Portals are online spaces for sharing practical knowledge (including ‘solutions’) about why and how to build community flood resilience. They bring together all of the knowledge generated and exchanged through the Zurich…

The Great Flood of 2019: A complete picture of a slow-motion disaster

This year’s flooding across the Midwest and the South affected nearly 14 million people, yet the full scale of the slowly unfolding disaster has been difficult to fathom.The volume of water is only one source…

MORE NEWS

The New York Times

Trump Opens National Monument Land to Energy Exploration

By Coral Davenport Photo: Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune, via Associated Press 2/6/20

The Trump administration finalized plans to open land once in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to mining and oil and gas exploration.

Washington Post

These southern Utah sites were once off-limits to development. Now, Trump will auction the right to drill and graze there.

By Sarah Kaplan and Juliet Eilperin 2/6/20

The Trump administration is greenlighting drilling and logging at Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante….

ecoRI news

Local Efforts to Address Climate Crisis Make Difference

During a weeklong bonus session of the General Assembly in September 2017, both the House and Senate approved bills that require Rhode Island municipal planning board members to undergo training related to the impacts of…

The Boston Globe

Trump’s EPA is said to cut scientists out of new water policy that threatens New England wetlands

By David Abe Photo by Craig F. Walker 1/18/20

With the Trump administration poised to roll back key protections for much of the nation’s wetlands, scientists at the US Environmental Protection Agency are accusing the agency’s political appointees of ignoring their advice and barring…

Water wars: Early warning tool uses climate data to predict conflict hotspots

Tension over water scarcity is increasing across the globe. A new system flags up where this threatens to erupt into violence….

The Water Crisis In Cities Everywhere Is Worsening Already Terrible Inequality

While the rich can drill wells and keep swimming pools filled, poorer residents line up for water and struggle to survive. …

Floods predicted to uproot 50 million people a year as climate heats up

Population growth, more intense rainfall and melting ice are likely to cause more frequent and severe floods, researchers warned on Tuesday.

How coastal communities can prepare for the challenges of storms and rising seas

Major coastal storms commonly kill hundreds of people and wreck homes, businesses and communities. The three major storms in 2017 – Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria – generated some $265 billion in damages and over…

The New York Times

Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows

By Denise Lu and Christopher Flavelle 10/29/19

Rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought, according to new research, threatening to all but erase some of the world’s great coastal cities.

Washington Post

Scientists triple their estimates of the number of people threatened by rising seas

By Chris Mooney Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post 10/29/19

150 million could live below the high tide line by 2050, new research finds.

bloomberg

River Flows All Across the Globe Are Dropping

By Eric Roston 10/2/19

Groundwater pumping in some of the world’s critical watersheds exceeds safe levels. It’s causing surface waters to fall at an alarming rate.

Houston Cleans up After Imelda’s Devastating Rains

Authorities confirmed a fifth death this weekend linked to devastating rainfall from Tropical Storm Imelda as the Houston area struggles to recover from last week’s intense…

US drinking water pollution could cause 100,000 cancer cases

Contaminated drinking water—most of which currently meets legal quality standards—could cause an estimated 100,000 cancer cases in the U.S., according to a new report.The study—which was published today in the journal HeliyonHeliyon and looked at…

un news

Nature ‘one of most effective ways’ of combatting climate change

By Inger Andersen 9/19/19

World leaders will be gathering at the United Nations in New York next week at a Climate Action Summit convened by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Ms. Andersen will be there to promote the…

The New York Times

How to Rebound After a Disaster: Move, Don’t Rebuild, Research Suggests

By Kendra Pierre-Louis Karsten Moran 8/22/19

What should communities do as climate change escalates threats like sea-level rise? Until now, much of the focus has been on disaster response, with very little discussion of orderly, strategic retreat from areas at risk.…

PEW

Conserving Coastal Habitats Can Help Address Climate Change

Paris Agreement provides framework for countries to protect vital ecosystems. Coastal wetlands and coral reefs are among the planet’s most biologically rich ecosystems, serving as nurseries and feeding grounds for a vast array of fish,…

NPR

High-Tide Flooding On The Rise, Especially Along The East Coast, Forecasters Warn

By Rebecca Hersher Photo by Wilfredo Lee/AP 7/10/19

Sea levels are rising, and that is sending more ocean water into streets, sewers and homes. For people who live and work in coastal communities, that means more otherwise-sunny days disrupted by flooding.

Flooding Disrupts DC as Capital Receives Month’s Rain in 1 Hour

The Washington, DC region received a month’s worth of rain in one hour Monday, leading to the most severe flooding in the area in recent years, The Washington Post reported. The climate crisis has led…

E&ENEWS

Coastal retreat ‘not a crazy idea’ — study

By Daniel Cusick Photo by Oscar Sanchez 7/9/19

Home buyouts are becoming more common in flood-prone communities across the country. But the strategy has garnered little interest in oceanfront cities and towns, even as they face rising risks of flooding in a warmer…

Wired

For the Midwest, Epic Flooding Is the Face of Climate Change

By Megan Molteni Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images 5/24/19

Fierce storms lashed across the central US this week, unleashing hundreds of powerful tornadoes that carved a path of destruction through parts of Missouri and Oklahoma Wednesday night, and left at least three dead. While…

The New York Times

25 States Are at Risk of Serious Flooding This Spring, U.S. Forecast Says

By John Schwartz and Nadja Popovich Photo: Tim Gruber for The New York Times 3/21/19

Vast areas of the United States are at risk of flooding this spring, even as Nebraska and other Midwestern states are already reeling from record-breaking late-winter floods, federal scientists said on Thursday.

This Is Not Normal Weather ANNA BELLE PEEVEY_ccr

InsideClimate News

Norfolk, Virginia: An Immediate Threat

Sea levels are rising everywhere, but the Navy town of Norfolk, Virginia has it worse. The land is sinking as much as an inch-and-a-half per decade. Scientists also believe that a slowing Gulf Stream is…

The Hill

Broken flood insurance should help people move, not rebuild

By Rob Moore and Joel Scata, Opinion Contributors 10/10/17

Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, have exposed a major shortcoming of the National Flood Insurance Program: federal flood insurance is ill-prepared to handle the major flood events that are becoming all-too frequent.