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This quarterly publication supplies up-to-date information about the tools and services developed by the NOAA Coastal Services Center for the nation’s coastal resource managers. Download Current Issue - Summer 2009 (PDF)New Products and ServicesClimate Change Adaptation Website Will Help Communities to Prepare. Communities considering how to prepare for climate change now can consult the Center’s Coastal Climate Adaptation website, which focuses on adaptation-related local and state plans, new policies, case studies, risk and vulnerability assessments, and decision-support tools. The site also features an interactive community-of-practice forum.
New Course Teaches Meaningful Evaluation Skills. Accountability. Efficiency. Effectiveness. The Center’s Planning for Meaningful Evaluation course was developed to meet a growing need among coastal professionals for evaluation results that clearly demonstrate accountability and spur improvements in program effectiveness and efficiency. Course participants learn to make informed choices that create fundamentally sound evaluation plans. Training locations planned for 2009 include New York, New Hampshire, Hawaii, and Alabama. Guam Now Has Growth-Planning Tool. In 2010 the U.S. Navy plans to station an additional 8,000 troops and their families in Guam. To help address the potential impacts of this growth, the NOAA Pacific Services Center has developed the Guam Resource and Environmental Assessment Tool (GREAT). This Web-mapping application provides detailed environmental and hazards information, enabling Guam’s coastal managers and planners to monitor development plans through a single system. The Center Supports The Nature Conservancy with Tools, Data, and Trainings. The Center helped The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in a South Carolina study to develop science-based standards for denoting compatible levels of development and sensitive coastal habitats. In the TNC study location, large timberland tracts currently considered for development could increase the area’s population by two to three times. The Center supported TNC with Coastal-Change Analysis Program land cover data, the Nonpoint-Source Pollution and Erosion Comparison Tool, and trainings conducted both on-line and in person.
Updated Products and ServicesLegislative Atlas Features Expanded Search and Mapping Capabilities. The Digital Coast: Legislative Atlas website has undergone updates that increase its usefulness to coastal resource managers. The original interactive feature summarizing laws can now be coupled with mapping capabilities that enable users to illustrate and analyze “georegulations” (i.e., the jurisdictional boundaries of federal and state laws). These new capabilities are a boon to coastal professionals who want to simplify the permit-review process or determine how new legislation would fit existing laws. Hawaii Gets Updated and Historical C-CAP Land Cover Data. Through its Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP), the NOAA Coastal Services Center and Pacific Services Center have made available a number of important Hawaii data sets: Elevation Data Inventory Is On-Line for Southeast Atlantic and Lake Ontario Coasts. The newest component of the Center’s Topographic and Bathymetric Data Inventory, the Topobathy Inventory Interactive Viewer, enables users to “zoom” to areas of interest in the Southeast Atlantic and Lake Ontario coastal regions, where pop-up boxes appear that list the best available high-resolution data sets. Also on-line are the Gulf of Mexico Inventory Maps, which list data sets in a pdf format searchable by location and collection date. Up to 20 attributes are posted to give users a better sense of data set quality. Future Products and InitiativesNOAA Kicks Off Land Cover Mapping Effort in the Western Pacific. The Center’s C-CAP program has begun high-resolution land-characterization efforts that mark the first time the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. territories of American Samoa and Guam have been included in a national land-cover mapping effort. Project planners have conducted extensive field surveys and reached out to a variety of stakeholders. When the entire project is complete in early 2010, the data will be used for purposes that include assessing erosion and supporting coastal management decisions. Science Camp Piloted in Hawaii. The NOAA Pacific Services Center, in partnership with Digital Science Solutions, piloted the first Pacific Science Camp, a multi-day overnight camp during which middle-school students explored science-based activities related to climate change. Activities included ground-truthing land cover data, demonstrating impacts of sea level rise, producing science stories in a digital format for the public, and marking the location of native species through Global Positioning System (GPS) software. Land Elevation and Seafloor Data Inventory Is Planned for Pacific Islands Region. The NOAA Pacific Services Center organized a meeting of the region’s bathymetric [seafloor] data community in order to begin the process of collecting information for a future land elevation and seafloor data inventory for the Pacific Islands region. When complete in fall 2009, this inventory will join others developed by the NOAA Coastal Services Center for the Southeast Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Lake Ontario coastal regions. In attendance were representatives from multiple NOAA line offices, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Pacific Disaster Center, the University of Hawaii, and Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Center NewsEvents Managers in Western Oregon Learn Land-Use Modeling Skills. The Center and the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) held a technical workshop for coastal managers that focused on applying the Center’s Nonpoint-Source Pollution and Erosion Comparison Tool (N-SPECT) to land management issues in the Oregon coastal zone. This was the first hands-on N-SPECT workshop delivered on the West Coast and the fourth coordinated with a NERR. N-SPECT is a geographic information system (GIS) tool used for assessing changes in runoff quantity and quality. Five Fellows Are Selected for Coastal Management Fellowship. The NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship program held its annual matching workshop, during which five fellows were matched with state coastal programs in California, Maryland, New Jersey, and Oregon. These new fellowship recipients will work on two-year projects that address issues such as adapting to climate change, planning for sea level rise, and building coastal resilience. Two former fellowship recipients now employed by coastal management agencies represented states in the 2009 program and assisted in the selection process. Habitat Planning Tool Strengthens Mobile Bay Conservation Efforts. The Mobile Bay Coastal Habitats Coordinating Team, consisting of representatives from the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program and organizations in coastal Alabama, met to establish updated conservation, protection, and restoration priorities for the Mobile Bay area. The team used the Center’s Habitat Priority Planner (HPP) tool to illustrate and discuss conservation options, as well as to generate prioritized habitat maps. This partnership effort, facilitated by the Center, The Nature Conservancy, and the National Marine Fisheries Services’s Office of Habitat Meeting Furthers Pacific Islands Coordination on Hazards and Climate Concerns. More than 80 representatives from nine island jurisdictions attended the first special session in the western Pacific of the Pacific Risk Management `Ohana (PRiMO), and the meeting focused on coastal inundation and associated risks from tsunamis, storm surge, and sea level rise. The meeting furthers the PRiMO mission of enhancing coordination and collaboration among risk management organizations in the region. West Coast Atlas Developers Convene Workshop. West Coast developers of Web-based coastal atlases met in Seattle, Washington, for the first West Coast Coastal Atlas Workshop, a planned annual gathering. Participants from California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Canada’s province of British Columbia, and the International Coastal Atlas Network discussed their applications, considered the potential for creating transboundary maps, and made recommendations for future regional data collection and dissemination. The workshop was co-sponsored by the Center and the Washington State Department of Ecology. Contact: Megan.Wood@noaa.gov Center Supports Resilience-Building Effort in the Philippines. At a 10-day training for local government officials in the Philippines, participants learned how marine-protected areas can be made more resilient through climate change adaptation planning and vulnerability and risk assessments. The training course was co-sponsored by NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries Program and Coastal Services Center, Conservation International, the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Center, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. Media Matters CanVis Is Covered in the News. CanVis, a free visualization software program, has been spotlighted in two influential media forums. CanVis was developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agroforestry Center and expanded by the NOAA Coastal Services Center to include coastal objects. CanVis articles were featured on the National Ocean Service website and in the April 20, 2009, on-line and print editions of County News, a publication produced by the National Association of Counties (NACo) with a readership of nearly 40,000 county officials across the country. CanVis helps users illustrate visual-impact scenarios connected with sea level rise, invasive species infestation, water level decline in the Great Lakes, offshore wind turbine placement, and various types of coastal development. NOAA Climate Change Data Are Featured on PBS. The Public Broadcasting System’s television program News Hour with Jim Lehrer recently featured the Center’s data and graphics depicting potential sea level rise in Savannah, Georgia. The visualization of Center data was originally featured on the website of Climate Central, a nongovernmental organization. Such televised stories highlight the development of Center products and services designed to address potential climate change impacts. Publication Synthesizes 24 Needs Assessments of the Coastal Management Community. Report on U.S. Climate Change Adaptation Highlights Actions and Unmet Needs. A published report, Good Morning, America! The Explosive U.S. Awakening to the Need for Adaptation by Susanne Moser of Susanne Moser Research and Consulting, identifies the national need for a comprehensive approach to managing climate-change-related risks. The author also identifies barriers to adaptation planning and policy development and suggests plans that will help the nation avoid the dangers of insufficient preparation. The report was co-sponsored by the Center and the California Energy Commission. Plaudits NOAA Training Programs Garner Excellent Reviews. The final report of a joint external review team affirmed the excellence of coastal resource management training programs run by the Center and NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS). The reviewers recognized both programs for providing science-based information and for building the skills and organizational capacities of coastal managers and decision makers. The Center’s national-level training program and the NERRS’ locally oriented coastal training program form a partnership that is complementary and mutually supportive. Center Magazine Wins State and National Awards. The Center’s national trade journal, Coastal Services, has won several state and national publication awards. The journal received two Silver Wing Awards of Merit from the South Carolina Public Relations Society of America in the categories of “Magazines for Internal Audiences” and “Internal Communications.” Furthermore, an article in the September/October 2008 edition of the magazine (“Finding Nemo … in Rhode Island?”) received a Second Place Blue Pencil Award from the National Association of Government Communicators. Training ScheduleTraining for your organization can take place at the Center in Charleston, South Carolina, or can be brought to your facility.* For more information on virtual and site-specific trainings, visit www.csc.noaa.gov/training/. CanVis Workshop August 19 Coastal Applications Using ArcGIS October 1 to 2 Coastal Community Planning and Development August 13 to 14 Introduction to ArcGIS July 28 to 29 August 11 to 12 September 29 to 30 Negotiating for Coastal Resources
Planning for Meaningful Evaluation September 1 to 2 Public Issues and Conflict Management July 28 to 30 September 15 to 17 Remote Sensing for Spatial Analysts * Off-site trainings are generally arranged through local coastal management hosts. Contact Info: To subscribe to the Products and Services Bulletin, e-mail csc.bulletin@noaa.gov. For additional information about this publication, contact Kitty Fahey or call (843) 740-1252. Note: All issues are in PDF form. Viewing Portable
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