Digital Coast Trainings

Provides participants with the knowledge and tools necessary to apply the ecosystem services framework to project planning (1-day course)

Provides a thorough introduction to adaptation planning, including practical skills, in-class exercises, and local speakers and discussions (2-day course)

Increases understanding of risk response and helps participants connect with diverse audiences to motivate action to reduce risk (1-day course)

Provides information about coastal flooding data and products with instruction on mapping various inundation extents using a GIS (2-day course)

Provides step-by-step guidance for identifying and accessing local sources of economic data and telling your local economic story (1-day course)

Provides instruction on tools for planning and conducting meetings that efficiently achieve objectives and minimize conflict (1-day course)

Provides tools needed to identify and address undesirable impacts from visitor use (2-day course)

Prepares coastal planners and managers for planning and implementing green or natural infrastructure projects to reduce coastal natural hazards in their communities (1-day course)

Provides the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to design and implement projects with measurable impacts (2-day course)

Increases participants’ ability to plan and facilitate meetings that enhance problem solving and minimize conflict (2-day course)

Offers a choice of workshop modules that help participants learn more about their coastal management community (1-day course)

Offers a customizable training that highlights the Digital Coast data, tools, and training best suited for your coastal management issue

Introduces participants to a basic approach used in coastal management projects to influence the way people interact with their environment

Covers the technical aspects of OpenNSPECT, a GIS-based tool used to examine land cover and estimate runoff, nonpoint source pollution, and erosion (3-hour webinar)

Introduces participants to the techniques most useful for effective communication about coastal hazards (90-minute webinar)

Walks participants through the development of a strategy that applies risk communication principles to overcome local communication challenges

Provides an opportunity for participants to have their questions and concerns about virtual meetings addressed by experienced facilitators

Provides tips and lessons learned about using flood maps to engage stakeholders (45-minute webinar)

Provides participants with the knowledge and tools to apply the ecosystem services framework when planning a project

Preps coastal managers and other professionals for planning and implementing green (natural) infrastructure projects to reduce natural coastal hazards

Provides the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to design and implement projects with measurable impacts (2-3 day course)

Provides basic knowledge and skills to help coastal managers understand their stakeholders by applying social science tools

Provides guidance and methods to identify current and future coastal flood risk, examine impacts on stormwater systems, and explore appropriate actions to respond

Provides resources for building conceptual models of coastal ecosystem services following a framework that is standardized, flexible, and credible

Offers a collection of learning resources for new coastal management program staff members

Provides guidance resources and case studies for implementing smart growth strategies in coastal and waterfront communities

Provides a quick reference guide for dealing with distracting behaviors during a meeting or event

Connects users with the case studies, maps, tools, and data they need to increase community resilience to natural hazards and climate change

Allows discovery of literature resources documenting the effectiveness of using green infrastructure to reduce impacts from coastal hazards

Provides detailed guidance for GIS analysts looking to incorporate flood-reducing conservation strategies into community planning efforts

Offers step-by-step guidance on how to calculate flood frequency for customized local scenarios, similar to the maps provided in the Sea Level Rise Viewer

Outlines a step-by-step approach to incorporating climate change information into a conservation plan

Outlines strategies for creating virtual meetings that efficiently attain meeting objectives

Provides instructions and resources for designing workshops that gather useful, map-based information from a variety of ocean resource user groups

Outlines a step-by-step process describing how to calculate open space credits for existing preserved lands and areas that may be considered for future protection

Demonstrates how land cover data can be used to assess several water quality indicators

Provides a step-by-step process for developing a strategic plan

Learn how coastal communities use high-accuracy, lidar-derived elevation data to improve management decisions

Provides nature-based solutions and a collection of case studies to help communities address flooding and erosion hazards

Provides instruction and guidance for people conducting a needs assessment

Demonstrates risk communication essentials to enable conversations that connect with your audience’s concerns and values

Demonstrates mental shortcuts people take to make decisions about risk, and provides communication tips on how to work with these shortcuts

Introduces best practices and techniques for more effective engagement with a variety of audiences on risk from coastal hazards

Provides guidance for working in the local scenarios tab of NOAA's Sea Level Rise Viewer

Provides guidance for working in the marsh migration tab of NOAA’s Sea Level Rise Viewer

Provides guiding checkpoints and interactive practice for determining whether state statutes or regulations would be approved as legally enforceable policies

Learn how to work with lidar data—from finding and assessing it to selecting the correct products

See how community leaders are engaging stakeholders and residents to reduce riverine flooding by reclaiming the floodplain

Learn how a Sea Grant agent is working with one community to audit and amend its existing land use codes and ordinances to be more inclusive of green infrastructure projects.

Learn about strategies for incorporating stricter floodplain building standards as residents recover from a major storm

Learn how investing in a green infrastructure study helped a community gain support for green infrastructure with transparent information

Learn how simple, low-impact development projects for controlling stormwater can build local support for natural and sustainable practices

See how a regional planner joined forces with a state geologist to increase municipal resilience through partnerships, persistence, and local know-how

Learn how one community used a collaborative approach to developing green infrastructure standards for retrofits

Discover strategies for a living shorelines approach in cold climates from an ecologist's perspective

Discover how this community is using dune restoration as an adaptive management strategy for coastal flooding and sea level rise.

Discover how this community transformed its image through waterfront revitalization efforts

Learn how communities are working with the state’s coastal program to build their resilience to tsunamis through land use planning.

Learn about the living shoreline approach this restoration expert took to stabilize an eroding shoreline and restore habitat, paving the way for future projects.

Learn how to approach green infrastructure at all scales to enhance resilience to hazards and future climate change impacts.

Learn how a flood administrator expanded her program’s reach by training local real estate professionals on flood risks, flood maps, and flood insurance.

Learn how one small community is investing in different land use approaches such as open space preservation to reduce flooding, resulting in savings for flood insurance policy holders.

Discover the approach used to create a model ordinance that enhanced public safety and community resilience to flood hazards

Learn about one green infrastructure technique to manage stormwater runoff

Learn how a community used buyouts and relocations to permanently reduce its flood risk

Learn about one state’s approach to disaster recovery preparedness.

Discover how scientists are using innovative approaches to reattach corals after hurricanes

Find strategies for using post-storm recovery efforts to boost overall community resilience.

Learn how one floodplain manager used risk communication best practices to help implement a flood acquisition program.

Learn how stakeholders are using a collaborative planning process to assess their hazard risks, vulnerabilities, and mitigation opportunities

Learn about creative ecological restoration techniques for building storm resilient coastal dune systems.

Learn about the stakeholder engagement and visual approaches used to propel towns into hazards resilience planning

Provides communities with key information and resources for moving forward with living shoreline projects in New Jersey

Includes themes and key messages to help planners convey to communities the value of incorporating hazard mitigation in their comprehensive plans

Guides users in selecting monitoring metrics, collecting data, and developing a monitoring plan for coastal wetland restoration and living shoreline projects

Outlines a process for measuring socioeconomic benefits of salt marshes, living shorelines, and oyster reefs

Outlines a process for planning evaluations that can improve any project or program

Outlines six steps to help communities determine costs of flooding and green infrastructure approaches

Provides a review of documents, policies, and staff experiences from three states on valuing ecosystem services

Documents an assessment of climate change impacts on the Mid-Atlantic region and suggestions for addressing those impacts at a state and regional scale

Offers a more complete understanding of the ocean economies in the Pacific island territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

Helps local planners sort through the numerous resources for benchmarking resilience and tracking progress

Offers guidance on integrating various local planning initiatives to achieve a community’s hazard resilience goals

Examines local data and knowledge that are not reflected in federal data sources used to produce Economics: National Ocean Watch statistics for the U.S. ocean economy

Offers a greater understanding of the existing data on Hawaii’s ocean economy and opportunities to estimate more accurate economic indicators for the ocean-dependent economy

Provides communities with a framework to assess the economic benefits of green infrastructure for reducing flood impacts

Highlights effective risk communication approaches, barriers to risk communication, risk tolerance, and the types of information needed for a risk communication strategy

Assists resource managers in incorporating ecosystem services into planning and management processes

Evaluates existing messages and identifies key target audiences and tactics to improve risk communication

Outlines technical recommendations for developing shallow-water benthic habitat maps from aerial imagery

Offers a step-by-step approach for incorporating climate change into coastal conservation planning and provides resources to help

Provides guidance through best practices and lessons learned for applying NOAA’s participatory method to collect information on ocean uses from stakeholder communities

Examines the human factors that encourage or deter hazard and resilience planning and what factors might lead to more robust planning

Provides the results of a collaborative project in which the values of ecosystem services were estimated by comparing two management scenarios with current conditions

Provides three case studies illustrating how coastal managers can use economic values of ecosystem services in making restoration and coastal protection decisions

Outlines eight steps to help communities calculate sea level change scenarios and communicate impacts

Introduces key elements and practices that will increase the success of a focus group effort

Describes basic economic concepts and methods and explains how state and local government officials can use them to make better-informed decisions

Describes facilitator roles, planning strategies, and the tools and techniques necessary to deliver results-driven meetings

Describes the basic method for conducting a social network analysis to “map” informal connections within and between groups

Discusses some of the most important considerations and offers a guide to the most common techniques

Provides insight into the various types and methods of survey research

Presents national and select state-level coastal recreation and tourism data for California, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Ohio

Provides an overview of the data produced by lidar sensors and ways to customize and use these data to inform coastal decisions

Examines the native accuracy of lidar data in coastal marsh settings and corrective techniques in their use for sea level rise studies

Provides step-by-step practice and tips for those charged with developing and mapping marine boundaries

Presents research findings and materials for raising storm surge awareness, including the Potential Storm Surge Flooding map

Provides a basic understanding of parameters, uncertainties, and appropriate uses of model results depicting potential future impacts of sea level rise on coastal wetlands and communities

Examines and visually illustrates the economic contributions of the oceans and Great Lakes

Presents basic demographic status and trends information from 1970 to 2020 for coastal shoreline and watershed counties

Provides tools to gather the information needed to assess the direction and priorities of an organization, and outline the foundational components of a strategic plan

Provides social science information about behavior and communication in the face of coastal hazards

Outlines how stakeholders respond to risk, why those responses occur, and how community leaders can inspire risk-wise behavior through improved communication

Describes the processes by which various audiences receive, interpret, and use storm surge data

Provides a useful overview of recreational opportunities and the cultural significance of the St. Louis River Estuary and environs

Provides simple strategies for leading a participatory mapping process, focusing primarily on stakeholder involvement

Provides a summary of wetland losses in the coastal areas of the conterminous United States from 2004 to 2009.

Promotes low impact development, or green infrastructure, to improve water quality, rainwater reuse, and groundwater recharge to better protect tropical island resources

Contains information on hurricane watches and warnings, protective actions from local officials, and meteorological hazards—all to help improve the usefulness of hurricane communications

Provides the methodology, case studies, estimation options, and data source ideas for estimating the economic contribution of working waterfronts

Outlines the inland significance of California’s marine transportation and ocean tourism sectors

This case study examines how strategically protecting natural lands and open space can reduce damages from flooding and also provide environmental and social benefits

Covers the complexity of behavior in the face of risk and offers best practices for effective risk communication

Focuses primarily on using photorealistic visualizations to convey coastal effects and introduces key concepts surrounding them

Helps community leaders and planners make more economically informed decisions about adapting to sea level rise and storm flooding

Companion workbook that provides the framework to build organizational commitment and guide the development of the strategic plan

Provides a consistent way to describe the coastal population to increase consistency in policy discussion and public understanding of coastal issues

Allows a closer examination into the questions provided in the companion quick reference checklist for considering ecosystem services in project planning

Provides information, data, and topics for consideration during community risk and vulnerability discussions

Provides questions to help get the conversation started about risks

Provides a description of land cover classes used within NOAA’s Coastal Change Analysis Program(C-CAP) regional land cover products

Provides a summary of the most common methods for collecting data needed for project or program evaluation

Offers an easy-to-follow format to determine how well existing development policies and regulations support a community’s economic, environmental, and social goals

Offers a process to plan your next interaction on coastal hazard risks

Provides definitions of coastal shoreline counties and coastal watershed counties

Offers a tool to help identify complex social aspects of resource management issues

Provides a list of the 400 coastal counties included in the Economics: National Ocean Watch (ENOW) data set

Provides a management tool to monitor the progress of evaluation report contributors and delegate and coordinate tasks

Provides a list of key techniques facilitators use to lead successful meeting discussions

Provides information and guidance for assessing community climate adaptation options

Provides information for local officials on the benefits of green infrastructure for resilience

Offers practices for flood reduction and to help communities design a green infrastructure strategy

Provides a brief summary of the importance of measuring the value of ecosystem services for coastal management, as well as tips and best practices

Offers a suite of tools in three categories, planning, facilitating, and activities, all of which are essential for executing an effective meeting

Provides a worksheet to use when gathering evaluation feedback from meeting participants

Presents easy-to-digest information on shoreline stabilization techniques, including living shorelines

Offers straightforward information about nature-based solutions, benefits, and costs, as well as tips for conducting a related economic analysis, in three quick references

Provides a helpful checklist for leaders who are enlisting people to participate in risk and vulnerability discussions

Provides a preliminary assessment to ensure you are on the right track when planning an ecosystem services project

Provides guidance for facilitators and meeting leaders on creating a productive meeting agenda

Offers a tip sheet of best practices and techniques for risk communication projects

Provides an easy-to-follow worksheet for developing a risk communication strategy

Provides a scoring guide to assess a program’s or project’s readiness for an evaluation

Provides concise descriptions and facts for the U.S. coastal economy, ocean economy, and coastal population and their appropriate uses

Provides a simple process for identifying stakeholders to involve in a community-wide decision-making process

Offers time-tested strategies for planning and running effective virtual meetings

Offers tips and opportunities to connect with FEMA, NOAA, and state agency resources to achieve coastal resilience, risk reduction, and storm preparedness goals

Provides tools for planning, facilitating, and participating in virtual meetings

Provides guidance on designing a vulnerability assessment

Provides guidance on how to create clearly defined objectives for any project or program

Examines the economic principles involved when evaluating ecosystem services (3-minute video)

Explains how decisions that make good economic sense may create unexpected consequences (2-minute video)

Explains the factors, such as jobs and wages, that have to be measured and evaluated to understand economic health (3-minute video)

Explains the ocean and Great Lakes economy in everyday terms and shows how this portion of the economy is related to the national economy (2-minute video)

Understand how economists value the tangible and nontangible components of the coast (3-minute video)

Demonstrates the role estuaries play in filtering nutrients and pollutants from land runoff as it enters larger bodies of water

Explains the concept of green infrastructure and its coastal storm protection benefits (3-minute video)

Provides information and tools to show how land cover impacts water quality (46-minute webinar)

Introduces the “living shorelines” concept and highlights examples from across the country (57-minute webinar)

Describes the complexity of ocean use planning and how MarineCadastre.gov helps officials evaluate sites for their offshore projects (1-minute video)

Explains the threats that come with shallow coastal flooding and shows how communities can best prepare (5-minute video)

Explains how to prepare for and respond to a tsunami (1-minute video)

Provides information that the public needs to better understand storm surge and the threat it poses to life and property (3-minute video)

Presents a case study from California on using nearshore benthic habitat maps to develop restoration goals (26-minute webinar)

Provides information on using participatory GIS to capture local knowledge on ocean-use patterns, including the process, data, and lessons learned (56-minute webinar)

Provides an overview of vessel tracking data and tools, and how to apply them to ocean planning (58-minute webinar)

Provides information about storm surge and its impacts (1-minute video)