What We Do
The NOAA Coastal Services Center recognizes the need for improved protection and sustainable use of coastal and marine resources. Achieving the right balance between the natural and built environment can be difficult and requires strategic and holistic planning.
In addition to providing the products and services available from this website, the Center partners with various government sectors and nonprofits to focus on site-specific conservation goals. These partnerships result in new products and collaborations designed to accelerate conservation gains in a region.
Alternatives for Coastal Development
Coastal communities need tools to help them analyze, visualize, and make decisions about economic, social, and environmental impacts. In the Alternatives for Coastal Development project, map-based visualization software (CommunityViz and ArcGIS) is used to analyze three hypothetical development scenarios in coastal Georgia. The project demonstrates tools to help decision makers visualize, measure, and compare options, and the results provide information that can help promote development decisions that are in keeping with conservation objectives.
Coastal Conservation Networking (CCN) Effort
The CCN effort is a collaboration of the Center, the Land Trust Alliance, and The Nature Conservancy to raise the profile and awareness of coastal conservation efforts and to foster interest in collaboration among diverse partner groups. The CCN partners communicate about unlikely partnerships and create learning opportunities at conference sessions and through an on-line resource.
Conservation Technology Clinic
Land trusts play key roles in conserving natural areas and working landscapes. Strategic conservation planning is facilitated by GIS and other technologies that can be challenging for small organizations to utilize. The technology clinic at the National Land Trust Alliance Rally provides a free venue for land trusts to get answers to their geospatial technology questions, from the most basic to the most advanced.
Creating Resilient Communities
A tri-county regional planning effort in Charleston, Dorchester, and Berkeley counties in South Carolina is working to make linkages among future development, conservation, and resilience to natural hazards. The project is working to overlay areas where natural hazards such as hurricanes and flooding threaten future community development. One goal of the project is to identify areas for conservation in which ecosystem services can help reduce the threats to people and infrastructure while providing natural areas for people and biodiversity alike.
Maine Coast Protection Initiative
Over 70 organizations are working together to preserve the unique character of Maine’s coast. As a core partner in the Maine Coast Protection Initiative (MCPI), the Center supported the strategic conservation planning process, provided funding, and provided technical support to increase the geospatial capacity of the local land trusts.
Northern California Ecosystem Based Management Pilot
The Ecosystem Based Management pilot project underway in and around Humboldt Bay in Northern California is working with local community members, nonprofits, academics, and government agencies to build a strong future for the bay and the people and ecosystems in the area. The Center is supporting this project through technical assistance, facilitating communication, and data collection.
Partnerships for Habitat Conservation: Mobile Bay
A new pilot project under NOAA Fisheries' Cooperative Habitat Protection Partnerships program in Mobile Bay, Alabama, is a joint effort of the Center, The Nature Conservancy, and the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (NEP). The pilot project focuses on updating the Mobile Bay NEP’s local acquisition and restoration priorities plan by incorporating new habitat and land use data, information on long-term stressors, interactive GIS functionality, regional planning considerations, and a range of implementation strategies.
Scenario Planning Tool for Coastal Conservation and Hazard Mitigation
The Center is working with The Nature Conservancy to provide an interactive decision-support tool for local governments on Long Island, New York, that will enhance community resilience and meet management objectives for coastal hazard mitigation and biodiversity conservation. The tool will account for future sea level rise and storm scenarios to help communities visualize and understand their risks and vulnerabilities.
South Carolina Marsh Island Assessment
The Center partnered with the South Carolina Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management and the state Department of Natural Resources to better assess development and conservation concerns involving marsh islands in South Carolina through the development of a GIS-based marsh assessment tool.
