ASFPM Announces Update of Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Planning Guide

The newly refreshed Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Planning Guide is here!

A lot can change in 10 years, both environmentally and scientifically. In 2014, the Great Lakes were at the end of the longest low-water level period of record for the region. Today the Great Lakes are coming out of a period of historic high-water levels, which peaked in 2019. As communities continue to navigate the complexities of managing land use and development along these changing Great Lakes shorelines, and as people’s memories of past challenges fade, communities need reliable information and guidance to develop regulations and standards and plan for the future. 

Enter the new and improved Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Planning Guide. 

Originally developed by the Digital Coast partnership in 2014 to show how coastal communities are using science-based information to address coastal hazards such as flooding, shore erosion, and lake-level fluctuations, the latest version features updated content and a fresh new look. 

Updates you will find include:

• New Resilience Planning Section – The former Climate and Environment section has been reorganized into a more comprehensive Resilience Planning section.
• In-depth Community Stories – The original Case Studies and Local Stories sections have been combined into a single Community Stories section, which features new case studies showcasing ASFPM and Digital Coast partners’ work in four Great Lakes communities. 
• New Story Maps – As with the original Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Planning Guide case studies and success stories, the new story maps for each participating community chronicle the technical assistance, vulnerability assessments, and scenario-based planning processes undertaken as part of the Challenge while also sharing the data, tools and resources utilized in that process.
• Refreshed Resources Special Collection – The resources in the special collection has been completely refreshed to include more relevant and timely resources from the Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency Resources Database, Great Lakes Sea Grant Network, and NOAA Digital Coast, as well as updated links to key coastal resilience related organizations in the Great Lakes region.

Although there are many existing resources, data, tools, and platforms available to communities in the Great Lakes region, such as the Lake Level Viewer and Great Lakes Coastal Flood Studies, it can be difficult for coastal communities to navigate which resources to use to inform decision-making and help build community resilience. Now more than ever, questions about community resilience and how to plan for the challenges presented by future climate conditions are being considered at the community level. Having access to science-based information is vital to address coastal watershed hazards, such as flooding, stormwater, shore erosion, and lake-level fluctuations. Over the last decade, there has been an increase in development of high resolution data and robust decision-support tools to address the needs of Great Lakes coastal communities. The Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Planning Guide continues to seek to connect Great Lakes community officials with these maps, tools, data, organizations, and resources so that they can more easily replicate successful resilience efforts that consider natural hazards and climate change in local planning and management efforts.

This 2024 update to the Planning Guide was led by ASFPM, in partnership with APA, CSO, and the Great Lakes Sea Grant Network via Wisconsin Sea Grant, with funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s National Coastal Resilience Fund. To share your stories, feedback, comments, or content ideas please contact: info@greatlakesresilience.org.