Coastal Hazards

Adapting to Climate Change

NOS is helping coastal communities develop strategies to prepare.

The global average combined land and ocean surface temperature for the month of June 2010 was the warmest on record. Learn more.

What can we expect from the climate in the coming decade? In the next century? How about hundreds of years from now? Scientists at NOAA and agencies around the world are actively researching these questions, but one thing is clear. We are experiencing the effects of climate change today — particularly in coastal communities.

One of the National Ocean Service’s key roles is to help coastal communities develop strategies to prepare. NOS experts are working directly with state decision makers and planners to share knowledge, talk about issues, and help identify climate change-related risks and vulnerabilities in their communities.

NOAA’s Coastal Services Center, for example, offers a customizable workshop to teach local and state shoreline planners about climate change, as well as the planning processes and actions that can help their communities better prepare for an uncertain future.

The Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management also offers a coastal climate adaptation guide (13.5 MB ) to help state and territory coastal managers develop and implement adaptation plans to reduce risks associated with a changing climate. The guide compiles information from a number of sources and includes techniques being used successfully by coastal managers to plan for other coastal hazards such as hurricanes. The goal? To help coastal states and communities prepare for and adapt to a changing climate.

Sea Level Rise

NOS is monitoring the rate of sea level rise to help us adapt to this change.

A visualization of the impact of a six meter (29.5 foot) rise in sea level (higher sea level shown in red). Learn more

With the majority of us living in coastal states, one impact of climate change many of us should be concerned about is sea level rise. Scientists have determined that global sea level has been steadily rising since 1900 at a rate of 1.7 millimeters (.07 inches) per year. While this may not seem like a big change, even a small rise in water levels can have a big impact—from increased flooding to eroding shorelines and loss of wetlands.

How do scientists keep track of these changes in sea level in the U.S.? NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) maintains a National Water Level Observation Network of 200 stations around the country. Monitoring the rate of sea level rise is an important component to helping us adapt to this change.

NOS is also measuring and helping people understand the magnitude of sea level rise on a local scale. CO-OPS provides a service called Sea Levels Online that serves up local rates of sea level rise for all U.S. coasts to help coastal decision makers understand and quantify risks. After all, we can’t plan for something if we don’t know what to expect!

Coastal Storms

NOS is helping communities get ready for coastal storms.

Hurricane Katrina, the most destructive hurricane ever to strike the U.S. Learn more

The high winds, flooding, and erosion associated with coastal storms such as hurricanes and nor’easters pummel coastal communities every year. And scientists estimate that the frequency and intensity of these storms is only going to increase. That’s kind of scary.

NOS is helping communities get ready for these storms so they will incur less damage and bounce back more quickly in the aftermath. For example, NOAA’s Coastal Services Center leads the Coastal Storms Program. This program brings together local, state, and federal organizations to deliver the specific tools, training, data, and other products to reduce the loss of life and other impacts from storms on communities and the environment.

The Center also offers a website called Historical Hurricanes Tracks, a resource that allows users to pinpoint historical hurricane information at specific geographic locations. With this tool, users can learn about the size and frequency of events that have occurred in their area of interest, coastal population growth over the past century, and hurricane-related damage estimates. Learning about past hurricane activity can help us prepare for the future.

In addition, the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services issues a real-time Storm Quicklook during coastal storm events to provide emergency managers and the public with an integrated display of water level and meteorological conditions in a location impacted by a hurricane. Post-storm reports are also available, which summarize the extreme water level conditions associated with the storm.

Erosion

NOS is helping to minimize loss of life and property caused by erosion.

With over 127 million people living along our coasts and estuaries, and an additional 180 million using the areas for recreation each year, the impacts of coastal erosion are a significant problem for coastal managers. Learn more

While it might be nice to have a house that is close to the ocean, there is such a thing as being too close. Erosion—caused by storms, flooding, sea level rise, or the alteration of the shoreline—can cause beaches and coastal bluffs to wear away. And that can be bad news for our homes and infrastructure. How bad? Today, erosion is responsible for around $500 million in coastal property loss each year.

As required by the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Office of Coastal and Ocean Resource Management works with state coastal management programs to not only minimize loss of life and property caused by erosion, but to do so while protecting natural coastal resources. Accomplishing both things requires the development of shoreline management policies, regulations, and plans. The office, in partnership with NOAA’s Restoration Center, offers a Shoreline Management Technical Assistance Toolbox to help coastal managers and local decision makers manage their shorelines. Effective shoreline management, such as the use of zoning, setbacks, education/outreach campaigns, relocation assistance, and/or land acquisition, can help to reduce, or avoid altogether, the need for costly erosion control structures. Effective shoreline management policies can also help maintain the natural shoreline dynamics and preserve important coastal environments.

Harmful Algal Blooms

NOS is helping to forecast HABs.

This deep red harmful algae, called Lingulodinium polyedrum, often produces brightly colored water discoloration. It has been associated with fish and shellfish mortality events, but its threat to human health is still being evaluated. Learn more

Coastal threats come in many forms. Harmful Algal Blooms—commonly referred to as ‘red tides’—are a good example of this.

Economic impacts of harmful algal blooms in the United States average $75 million annually including impacts on public health costs, commercial fishing closures, recreation and tourism losses, and management and monitoring costs.

When these events occur, NOS is there to help coastal states. For instance, the NOAA Harmful Algal Bloom Operational Forecast System provides alert bulletins to help predict HAB landfall for the states that border the Gulf of Mexico. How? NOS scientists can locate blooms by assessing surface chlorophyll concentrations detected by satellite imagery and verified by data from ships or along the shore. They then apply their understanding of the biological and physical aspects of bloom dynamics and transport and the conditions that are conducive for HAB development to predict when and where HABs will impact coastal communities.

If you don’t live near the Gulf of Mexico, stay tuned. HAB forecasts are in various stages of development in other parts of the nation.  The Harmful Algal Bloom Operational Forecast System is operated by the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services — the nation's authoritative source for accurate, reliable, and timely water-level and ocean current measurements. The forecasting system is also produced in close partnership with NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science.

Would you like to know more about HABs? You’re in luck!

Hypoxia & Eutrophication

NOS studies hypoxic zones to help restore and protect coastal ecosystems.

At least 166 hypoxic dead zones attributable to human activities have been documented along our nation's coasts. Learn more

Have you ever heard of the phrase 'dead zone?' No, we're not talking about a B-movie horror flick. We're talking about a phenomenon called 'hypoxia,' which refers to a reduced level of oxygen in the water. Less oxygen dissolved in the water is often referred to as a "dead zone" because most marine life either dies, or, if they are mobile such as fish, leave the area. Habitats that would normally be teeming with life become, essentially, biological deserts.

Hypoxic zones can occur naturally, but scientists are concerned about the areas created or enhanced by human activity. Nutrient pollution—known as eutrophication—is the primary cause of those zones created by humans. Excess nutrients that run off land or are piped as wastewater into rivers and coasts can stimulate an overgrowth of algae, which then sinks and decomposes in the water. The decomposition process consumes oxygen and depletes the supply available to healthy marine life. Dead zones occur in many areas of the country, particularly along the East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes, but there is no part of the country (or the world for that matter) that is immune.

NOS is involved with many activities to study, monitor, and predict hypoxic zones to help natural resource managers restore and protect coastal ecosystems. The Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research is at the forefront of this effort. This office, part of the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, administers the nation's only federal-level hypoxia programs. The goal of these efforts involve collecting vast amounts of sampling data from our hypoxia-prone coastal waterways, synthesizing this information, and producing complex computer models to understand how these zones are forming—and how they may form in the future. Knowing how these zones form in different parts of the country is also key in helping decision-makers target which activities on land need to curbed to best reduce this threat.

Check out podcasts on eutrophication and hypoxia to learn more straight from NOS experts.

Tsunamis

NOS provides real-time coastal water level data, critical for tsunami warnings and forecasts.

Tsunamis are giant waves caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions under the sea. Out in the depths of the ocean, tsunami waves do not dramatically increase in height. But as the waves travel inland, they build up to higher and higher heights as the depth of the ocean decreases. The speed of tsunami waves depends on ocean depth rather than the distance from the source of the wave. Learn more

NOS' primary role in tsunami warning is to provide real-time coastal water level data to NOAA's Tsunami Program and the public, which is critical to issuing warnings and forecasts during an event.

High-frequency water level information is also important to tsunami modeling, both during and after an event, to refine the forecasts as the event progresses, and to better understand tsunami science for future improvements to the National Tsunami Warning System.