From Data to Action: Supporting Coastal Resilience

As we head into the middle of the 2026 tropical storm season we wanted to share how the ASFPM is working to support coastal resilience around the country.

If you’re familiar with NOAA’s Digital Coast, you know that it’s a resource that’s all about providing actionable information to coastal communities large and small, while demonstrating a collaborative approach that aligns with the needs and technical capacities of the communities served by NOAA.

You might also know that ASFPM is a founding member of NOAA’s Digital Coast Partnership, which, in addition to NOAA is made up of eight non-governmental membership organizations including the American Planning Association (APA), Coastal States Organization (CSO), National Association of Counties (NACo), National Estuarine Research Reserve Association (NERRA), National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), The Nature Conservancy, and the Urban Land Institute (ULI).

The partner organizations have extensive experience individually and together supporting communities, large and small, as they work to apply policy, data, tools, and training toward local natural disaster resilience through vulnerability assessments, adaptation and hazard mitigation planning efforts, and other activities. NOAA is now drawing on that experience, engaging the Digital Coast Partners to provide technical assistance to Climate Resilience Regional Challenge (CRRC) funded projects around the country.

The Climate Resilience Regional Challenge is a $573 million grant program administered by the NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management that supports collaborative projects aimed at increasing coastal community resilience to extreme weather. By focusing on risk reduction, community engagement, regional coordination, and long-term capacity building, the initiative will drive significant outcomes, including extensive habitat restoration, land acquisition, infrastructure improvements, the creation of community adaptation plans, and substantial investments in workforce development and economic activity.

A central focus of the partnership’s technical assistance to the CRRC projects is to support service delivery of high-resolution Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) land cover data. While already available for several coastal areas, NOAA most recently released new, higher-resolution land cover maps for coastal Alabama, Mississippi, Northeastern Ohio, Rhode Island, and the Puget Sound in Washington.

The new land cover mapping provides drastically improved visual resolution, from 30 meters to 1 meter, and is 900 times more detailed than what was produced 10 years ago. Having that level of detail will help decision-makers in the U.S. document key geographic and landscape features at various locations on the Earth’s surface and track how their land use is changing.

Land cover maps document on-the-ground features, from forests and wetlands to impervious surfaces, like buildings and roads. The Digital Coast Partners will be helping individual CRRC project teams understand and use the high-resolution land cover data for building resilience and reducing the risk of natural hazards.

More broadly, the land cover data will be made available through the Digital Coast website and will provide all coastal communities with better information for decisions related to stormwater management, water quality assessments, urban heat and tree canopy/cover projects, wetland restoration, modeling, flood mitigation, and more.

As this work continues, Digital Coast Partners will produce case studies and share the successes and lessons learned by the CRRC project teams as they engage with us through the technical assistance process.

Get Involved & Learn More

Whether you want to follow the CRRC projects as they unfold, put the new C-CAP data to work in your own community, or connect with the NOAA directly, here’s where to start:

• ASFPM Involvement & Engagement: Learn how ASFPM is involved and explore member opportunities by contacting Jeff Stone, ASFPM Flood Science Center Co-Director at jeff@floods.org.
• C-CAP Data & Case Studies: Access the C-CAP high-resolution land cover data or share how you’ve used it by contacting Nate Herold, NOAA Physical Scientist at nate.herold@noaa.gov.

Watch for more updates on the CRRC projects and the growing C-CAP dataset in future issues of News & Views.