Coastal Services Center

Regional Projects

Building Geospatial Capacity in the Pacific

Ongoing NOAA Pacific Services Center efforts provide the Pacific Islands with needed geospatial tools, data, training, and services. These efforts include developing an inventory of spatial data for the Pacific Islands region, supporting regional data development initiatives to include land cover, and working with watershed planning and land-based pollution control projects.

NOAA Regional Collaboration Support

Eight regional teams and four national priority area task teams are providing the coordination necessary for NOAA to address regionally distinct priorities and its own national priorities of hazard-resilient communities, integrated ecosystem assessments, integrated water resource services, and outreach and communication. NOAA Pacific Services Center staff members lead the Pacific region efforts and the hazard-resilient coastal communities priority-area task team.

NOAA Resilience Portal

This Web-based portal provides access to a basic suite of data, information, tools, products, and services available from NOAA that are needed to help communities in pilot regions understand, evaluate, and enhance community resilience to natural hazards.

Pacific Islands - Enhancing Coastal Community Resilience

The NOAA Pacific Services Center is conducting a range of activities that support the enhancement of coastal community resilience, including the development of a coastal community resilience guidebook and assessment tool, and an assessment of existing hazard mitigation plans. Tsunami inundation models are also being developed for the U.S. Pacific Island territories. These areas are highly vulnerable to tsunami impacts but have never been modeled.

Pacific Islands Technical Assistance

The NOAA Pacific Services Center provides technical assistance to the coastal resource managers in the U.S. flag Pacific Islands. This assistance includes working with geospatial technologies, raising awareness of the availability of remotely sensed data sets, providing technical training, and directing efforts to create a unified geodetic network. Efforts include working with the National Geodetic Survey to make improvements to the National Spatial Reference System in the Pacific, introducing new land cover data and related tools, and providing GIS training classes when needed.

Pacific Islands Technology Tools and Applications

The NOAA Pacific Services Center is conducting a range of activities that support the development of technology tools and applications that help communities build resilience to coastal hazards. Some of the new activities include a partnership with the NOAA National Weather Service to develop an Internet application for distributing NOAA Weather Radio alerts. This application will provide a much-needed service for the Pacific Islands region, since the NOAA Weather Radio coverage for portions of the islands is intermittent. Another activity is the development of an environmental resource assessment tool for Guam.

Pacific Regional Geodetic Advisor Support

The Pacific Services Center supports a variety of activities geared toward enhancing the geodetic foundation of the National Spatial Reference System in the Pacific region. This initiative primarily involves technical support and training.

Pacific Risk Management 'Ohana (PRiMO)

The Pacific Risk Management 'Ohana (PRiMO) is an interagency working group focused on collaboration among Pacific organizations that have disaster risk management roles. The group’s focus is on building hazard resilience at the community level. The Pacific Services Center is leading efforts to assess the applicability of the Indian Ocean Coastal Community Resilience Program and the Community Resilience Index to the U.S. Pacific Islands. Efforts are also focused on initiating multiagency collaborative projects geared at enhancing hazards resilience in coastal communities throughout the Pacific Islands region.

Strengthening the Capacity for Marine Protected Area Management Effectiveness Evaluation in the Pacific Region

The NOAA Pacific Services Center offers technical assistance and training on management planning and effectiveness evaluation to international governments and their nongovernmental partners. Requests have come from Indonesia, Fiji, the Bahamas, South Korea, and U.S. territories in the Pacific region.

U.S. Government’s Contribution to the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System

Work will continue with the U.S. Agency for International Development to create a coastal community resilience program for the Indian Ocean region, a component of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System. Products include a community resilience guidebook, a training program, and a hazard assessment Internet mapping tool.

Watershed Management Technical Support

This effort provides assistance to organizations interested in addressing land-based pollution sources. A key element involves providing technical training and assistance and concept design development. These efforts will help jurisdictions acquire technical knowledge and establish a programmatic framework for addressing and controlling land-based sources of pollution using a watershed approach.

Hawaii

Ahupua’a Management Toolkit

Many watershed management products and services have been developed across NOAA, as well as other agencies, for the State of Hawaii. This project packages these efforts together and builds upon their cumulative benefits. A unique aspect is the integration of traditional Hawaiian knowledge and practices with contemporary science and technology to enhance natural resource and community resilience.

Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) Hawaii Grant Opportunity

The B-WET Hawaii Program provides competitive grants to organizations that use the outdoors as a living laboratory, directly connecting students to their marine and aquatic ecosystems. The awards are funded for one year and provide meaningful outdoor experiences for students and professional development opportunities for teachers. Over 30,000 participants have benefited from B-WET Hawaii Programs since the grant program began in 2004. Current priorities include earth systems science and community resilience to hazards.
www.csc.noaa.gov/psc/bwet.html

C-CAP Land Cover and Change Data

The Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) is a nationally standardized database of land cover and change data within the coastal regions of the U.S. C-CAP products inventory coastal intertidal areas, wetlands, and adjacent uplands with the goal of monitoring natural and human-induced changes in these habitats on a one-to-five year cycle. Key efforts in 2008 included land cover and change maps and products developed with private-sector remote sensing contractors for the Great Lakes, Northeast, Pacific, and Caribbean Island regions.
www.csc.noaa.gov/landcover/

Coastal Elevation Mapping

The Center works with state and local officials to collect and distribute high-resolution topographic and bathymetric data sets. The Center worked with the private sector to acquire new light detection and ranging (lidar) and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IfSAR) data for coastal management applications such as the analysis of storm surge and storm inundation, erosion, and habitat mapping. The Center also worked with state and federal partners to share costs and find multiple uses for coastal lidar and IfSAR data sets.
www.csc.noaa.gov/crs/tcm/

Coastal Hazards Risk and Impact Assessment Toolkit

Through a portfolio, or toolkit, of products and services, the NOAA Coastal Services Center and the Pacific Services Center help local communities analyze their coastal hazard risks and impacts from hurricanes and coastal storms, inundation, flooding, and shoreline change. The toolkit includes mapping tools and templates, training, visualization techniques, methodologies and best practices, and data resources, as well as marketing materials and the Center’s coastal hazards outreach plan.

Coastal Services Magazine

This bimonthly trade publication focuses on efforts by local, state, and nonprofit organizations to address coastal issues. Recent articles featuring programs in Hawaii include the following:

• Hawaii Balances Use and Sustainability of Hanauma Bay – March/April 2001
• Hawaii Web Site Connects with Sea Squirt – September/October 2001
• Hawaii Agencies Come Together to Clean Up Derelict Fishing Gear – July/August 2002
• Hazards Mitigation: Hawaii Takes On Mother Nature – September/October 2003
• Tsunami! Preparing Hawaii for the Next Big Wave – September/October 2004
• Getting Earthquake Data into the Hands of Decision Makers in Hawaii – January/February 2006
• Hawaii's Secret Weapon against Alien Algae – July/August 2006
• Researchers Make a SPLASH in the North Pacific Studying Humpback Whales - January/February 2007
• Ocean Awareness Helps Provide Competitive Edge for Tourist Operators in Maui - July/August 2008
www.csc.noaa.gov/magazine/

Coral Reef Management Fellowship

The fellowship program provides professional on-the-job education and training to highly qualified individuals on island-level coral reef management and provides policy and management support. Fellows are placed every other year and spend two years working on specific projects and activities determined by each island’s lead coral reef management agency.
www.csc.noaa.gov/cms/assistants/

Environmental Literacy Program

Over 500,000 students, teachers, and local community participants have benefited from NOAA Pacific Services Center’s Environmental Literacy Program. An example is the NOAA Honua project, an innovative education tool that uses digital globe formats, such as NOAA’s Science On a Sphere and the Magic Planet, to provide opportunities for local communities to increase their understanding and use of NOAA’s data, information, and programs.

N-SPECT Applications

The Nonpoint-Source Pollution and Erosion Comparison Tool (N-SPECT) is a GIS-based screening tool that models basic hydrologic processes, including overland flow, erosion, and nonpoint source pollution for watersheds. Staff members worked in Hawaii to help officials implement this powerful tool.
www.csc.noaa.gov/crs/cwq/nspect.html

Hawaii Flood Response Tool

This software, which is being developed for local emergency managers, will provide an improved operational picture for flood response activities by automatically logging disparate real-time and near real-time observation data and text products via the Internet. The information will be displayed along with historical and baseline data in an easy-to-interpret format utilizing GIS. This rapid access to new data streams should provide a more realistic picture of on-the-ground conditions and reduce data compilation time.

Hawaii Tsunami Evacuation Visualization Tool

New models and updated data are causing Hawaii to rezone some tsunami evacuation areas and change the designations of some previously identified tsunami evacuation shelters. This new information, however, is not always easy for the public to find. This tool provides a user-friendly mechanism for the public to access Hawaii’s tsunami hazards information.

Hazard Assessment Tools

Local communities have requested an easy-to-use way to access hazards data, since this information is useful when issuing building permits and making zoning decisions. Site-specific tools have been developed in response to this request.
www.csc.noaa.gov/hat/

High-Resolution Land Cover

The Center’s Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) develops high-resolution data that complements the C-CAP regional land cover products by providing information that managers can use to address more site-specific management issues. In 2008, this high-resolution work focused on the completion of impervious surface products for the main eight islands of Hawaii, high-resolution land cover maps for the counties of Oahu and Maui, and continued work with the National Estuarine Research Reserve System and other partners as they explore new ways to use these data. The data were obtained via contracts with various remote sensing companies.
www.csc.noaa.gov/landcover/

Legislative Atlas

This Web-based legislative mapping tool provides coastal resource managers with easy access to coastal legislative data and information. Efforts in 2008 focused on incorporating additional legislative information for the three regions represented in the atlas—Hawaii, California, and the Gulf of Maine. This added information includes both federal and state regulations. The legislative query tool will also be redesigned according to user input.
www.csc.noaa.gov/legislativeatlas/

Marine Debris Action Planning

The NOAA Pacific Services Center is working with the NOAA Marine Debris Program to address marine debris issues across the Hawaiian archipelago. At the conclusion of this project, a strategic and implementable plan will be in place to address activities in five focus areas: research, outreach and education, land-based debris prevention, beach cleanups, and in-water and reef debris removal.

Training

The NOAA Coastal Services Center provides training to the coastal resource managers of the nation in three focus areas: geospatial technology, coastal management, and building process skills. Training can take place at the Center’s training facility for some courses but most often is taken to coastal managers in the field. Recent courses delivered to programs in Hawaii include

• Coastal Applications of ArcGIS
• Project Design and Evaluation
• Public Issues and Conflict Management
www.csc.noaa.gov/bins/resources/training.html

Updating Nautical Charts and U.S. Coast Pilot

The NOAA Pacific Services Center is partnering with the Office of Coastal Survey to ensure that the nautical charts and U.S. Coast Pilot within the Pacific Islands are up-to-date and accurate so that these data (e.g., current shorelines, hydrographic depths, features, and aids or dangers to navigation) can assist maritime commerce.

Other Pacific Islands

(American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam)

Coastal Services Magazine

This bimonthly trade publication focuses on efforts by local, state, and nonprofit organizations to address coastal issues. Recent articles featuring programs in the other Pacific Islands include the following:

• Student Input at the Heart of Mariana Islands CD-ROM – May/June 2001
• Guam Managers Take Coral Reef Show on the Road – May/June 2002
• Getting the Fact Sheets Straight in Guam – January/February 2003
• The Northern Marianas’ Drive to Protect the Beach – March/April 2003
• Population Growth: American Samoa Determines How Many Is Too Many – July/August 2003
• Planning for Coastal Fun a Big Job in Guam – January/February 2005
• Picturing the Risks from Natural Hazards in American Samoa – March/April 2005
• Teaching Environmental Stewardship in American Samoa – May/June 2007
• Collaboratively Managing Marine Resources in American Samoa - November/December 2008
www.csc.noaa.gov/magazine/

Coral Reef Management Fellowship

The fellowship program provides professional on-the-job education and training to highly qualified individuals on island-level coral reef management and provides policy and management support. Fellows are placed every other year and spend two years working on specific projects and activities determined by each island’s lead coral reef management agency.
www.csc.noaa.gov/cms/assistants/

Hazard Assessment Tools

Local communities have requested an easy-to-use way to access hazards data, since this information is useful when issuing building permits and making zoning decisions. Site-specific tools were developed in response to this request.
www.csc.noaa.gov/hat/

Needs Assessment and Social Science Tools Coordination and Technical Assistance

The Center provides coastal managers and communities with technical assistance in the use of social science tools, including assessing customer needs. This project provides technical assistance with survey design and analysis and for the facilitation of meetings, workshops, and stakeholder engagement in projects across the country, including the Pacific Islands.

Land Cover Mapping

Nothing provides a big picture view of land cover status better than these maps, which are developed using remote sensing technology. The Center has baseline land cover data for most of the coastal zone. The goal is to update the imagery every five years to also provide a means of detecting change or trends.
csc.noaa.gov/landcover/

Pacific Services Center Partner Support

The NOAA Pacific Services Center supports NOAA National Ocean Service partners working in the Pacific. This assistance included natural resource damage assessment workshops in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in November 2008. The Pacific Services Center also supports technical assistance needs related to marine debris research, prevention, and removal. A typhoon protection strategy is also being discussed.

Pacific Islands Climate Change Portal

This portal provides climate information and climate-related resources to coastal resource managers. The content includes tools, reports, trainings, websites, data sets, educational materials, risk assessments, and climate projections. Partnering with NOAA in this endeavor are multiple groups in the Pacific, including the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the NOAA Integrated Data and Environmental Applications (IDEA) Center. This is a prototype effort initially developed for Samoa and American Samoa but with the possibility of expanding to include additional Pacific islands. This prototype could be used in other geographies as well.

Updating Nautical Charts and U.S. Coast Pilot

The Pacific Services Center is partnering with the Office of Coastal Survey to ensure that the nautical charts and U.S. Coast Pilot within the Pacific Islands are up-to-date and accurate so that these data (e.g., current shorelines, hydrographic depths, features, and aids or dangers to navigation) can assist maritime commerce.