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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 - Fall 2009 (PDF)New Products and Emerging InitiativesPublications Help Coastal Professionals Sharpen Social Science Skills. Three new publications have been added to the Center’s suite of social science resources. Introduction to Conducting Focus Groups describes key elements and practices that will increase the success of any focus group effort. Stakeholder Engagement Strategies for Participatory Mapping helps readers understand how to construct community maps by incorporating the physical, social, cultural, and economic features valued by stakeholders. Introduction to Economics for Coastal Managers explains economic valuation methods that help coastal professionals to weigh complex trade-offs and craft solid resource management decisions. Guides are available on-line as PDFs or in print form by request. West Coast Ocean Health Agreement Progresses to Action Phase. The states of California, Oregon, and Washington released eight work plans for public comment as part of the West Coast Governors’ Agreement on Ocean Health (WCGA). Many state and federal partners, including the Center, have helped produce the WCGA work plans, which lay out strategies for tackling ocean-related concerns that include climate change, renewable energy, seafloor mapping, invasive species eradication, and other issues. Work plan action steps are already underway for furthering integrated ecosystem assessments and sustainable coastal communities. Center Helps Devise Discovery Center Visualizations of Sea Level Rise. Technical staff members at the Center, working closely with personnel at the North Inlet – Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, created visualizations for the reserve’s Discovery Center exhibit on changing coastlines. Photographic simulations of current and future conditions illustrate the potential impacts of sea level rise in Georgetown, South Carolina. A Google- generated fly-through video—playing continuously on an LCD display—simulates a flight over the Georgetown area and highlights the potential impact of a one-meter change in sea level. NOAA Maps Out Southeast and Caribbean Initiative to Improve Forecasting. NOAA’s Hydrometerology Testbed Southeast (HMT-SE) initiative will accelerate the infusion of new technologies, models, and scientific results into the daily weather and flood forecasting operations of the National Weather Service and its river forecast centers in the regions. To advance that aim, the Center and the Southeast and Caribbean Regional Team (SECART) facilitated a HMT-SE workshop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that was attended by approximately 70 NOAA and academic scientists and researchers. The workshop findings will inform the development of a science plan that will guide the implementation of the project. Digital Coast Partnership Group Releases the Coastal Inundation Toolkit. The Coastal Inundation Toolkit has made its debut as part of the Digital Coast website. The toolkit provides resources that range from inundation and risk assessment basics to detailed technical guidance on inundation mapping. The toolkit received financial support from the Mississippi Coordinating Council for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems, and it was developed by the Digital Coast Partnership Group, which includes the Center and five additional national organizations. Center Supports Marine Spatial Planning Workshops in Three Regions. The Center recently supported workshops in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and West Coast regions that will advance collaborative data management and decision making in marine spatial planning. In Rhode Island and Delaware, workshops presented by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and supported by the Center enabled more than 200 scientists and stakeholders to discuss wind-energy siting concerns and to review TNC’s Northwest Atlantic Marine Ecoregional Assessment. At a workshop in California co-hosted by the Center, representatives from 30-plus organizations talked about the state’s current geospatial information system (GIS) capacity as well as the critical importance of GIS in facilitating future resource management and marine spatial planning efforts. Following the workshop, GIS infrastructure and communication recommendations were made to the California Ocean Protection Council and State Legislature. Agencies Help Land Trusts to Increase Climate Adaptation Capacity. At the upcoming Rally 2009 conference, Center Director Margaret Davidson and other federal agency representatives will describe federal partnerships and resources available for land trusts seeking to advance coastal conservation in an era of climate change. As part of a NOAA initiative, the Center has forged a partnership of public and private organizations that will help land trusts increase their adaptive capacities. The partners—which include The Nature Conservancy, the Land Trust Alliance, the Center, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—are initiating the following adaptation-related efforts: co-funding a Land Trust Alliance climate fellowship; providing a staff member from the NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation to work for three months at the Land Trust Alliance; and contributing tools, data, information resources, and technical assistance to help land trusts implement conservation projects that enhance climate resilience in the coastal zone. Habitat Priority Planner Training Is Here. This course provides students with the
knowledge and skills needed to successfully use the Habitat Priority Planner (HPP), an
ArcGIS extension that assists users in crafting conservation, land use, and restoration
plans. Course participants learn how to engage stakeholders, use land cover data sets to
classify habitats, apply spatial analysis methods that support strategic planning, analyze
scenarios for proposed land use changes, and prioritize habitats for management action.
Updated Products and ServicesOregon Adopts Hazard Awareness Tool. The Center’s Hazard Education and Awareness Tool (HEAT) is a Google Maps-based template for creating hazard awareness websites. The success of HEAT in Hawaii—used by more than 50,000 residents and visitors—convinced State of Oregon officials to use the tool to address tsunami risk. The HEAT template includes the Google Maps “address search” function, which enables users to access hazard risk maps and a wealth of additional hazard risk information. Furthermore, HEAT in Oregon provides on-line access to interactive tsunami evacuation zone maps, preparedness and evacuation information, and facts about tsunamis. Storm Mapping Tutorial Rolls Out Expanded Features. An enhanced version of the Center’s Storm Mapping Tutorial has been released and is available for download. As tropical weather activity increases during hurricane season, this timely tutorial guides users through the process of downloading, converting, and displaying NOAA weather data in a geographic information system before, during, and after storm events. Recent updates include new data sources and mapping connections, easier-to-use data formats, and compatibility with new technologies such as Google Earth. Future Products and InitiativesNOAA Kicks Off Land Cover Mapping in Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. For the first time, the Center's Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) will include
Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in a national, land cover mapping effort.
In Puerto Rico, C-CAP is partnering with the Jobos Bay Reserve and the Puerto
Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources. The data will be used
to assess the impact of different management practices on coral reef health as well as
to monitor the reserve and encourage conservation efforts. Land cover mapping in
the U.S. Virgin Islands will be coordinated by the C-CAP project team, The Nature
Conservancy, and the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural
Resources. The data will be used to support the selection of conservation priority areas. Geospatial Technology Course Will Be Tailored to Coastal Resource Managers.Introductory courses in geographic information system (GIS) technology do not
always address the learning approaches and coastal scenarios most helpful to
the nation's coastal resource managers. The Center's customized Introduction
to Coastal GIS course changes this oversight by educating coastal professionals
in the use of ArcGIS desktop software through real-world coastal management
examples and data. Exercises include the siting of marine-protected areas, visualizing
of coastal population growth, and analyzing of impacts to coastal habitats. Center NewsEvents NACo Pledges Continued Support of Digital Coast. Citing the needs of its members for coastal data and information, the National Association of Counties (NACo) passed a resolution at its annual conference pledging continued support of NOAA’s Digital Coast. NACo is an important member of the Digital Coast Partnership, a group of six organizations working to advance the use of geospatial technologies in coastal management. The Center, which led the multiagency effort to organize the Digital Coast website, took part in the NACo conference by highlighting data and tools counties can use to coordinate resilience-planning efforts. Alabama Workshop Targets Coastal Risk and Resilience Behaviors. The Center and the Northern Gulf Institute co-hosted a workshop in Spanish Fort, Alabama, to identify specific behaviors that can foster greater individual and community resilience in the face of coastal hazards and climate change impacts. Attendees representing academia, nonprofits, the insurance industry, and all scales of government used a community-based social marketing model to identify and prioritize target audiences. Participants also listed partners and programs that can help foster resilient behaviors in the community. Media Matters Climate Adaptation Workshop Materials Are On-Line. Instructional materials from a climate change adaptation workshop are now available on-line. The training materials focus on global and local impacts of climate change, community engagement, case studies, vulnerability assessments, and adaptation strategies. The original training was supported by the Center and developed by the National Estuarine Research Reserve System with the assistance of Washington Sea Grant, the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group, and the King County Executive Office. NOAA Publication Outlines Tropical Cyclone History of Eastern North Pacific. The eastern North Pacific tropical cyclone basin produces the most tropical cyclones per square mile of any basin worldwide. As part of its Historical Climatology Series, a new NOAA publication sheds light on this phenomenon. Tropical Cyclones of the Eastern North Pacific Ocean: 1949-2006 is the first compilation of track maps and basin statistics that NOAA has done in 25 years. It also features one of the one of the most detailed studies ever completed on Mexican hurricane landfalls. The Center, one of several NOAA partners, contributed the geospatial technology expertise that was needed to produce the 126 maps displayed throughout the publication. Plaudits Center Publications Garner Awards from Three National Competitions. Publications produced by the Center recently received a total of 12 awards from three prestigious national competitions: the APEX Awards, the Eco Awards for Excellence in Environmental Communications, and the Magnum Opus Awards (given by the University of Missouri School of Journalism and ContentWise magazine). The publications honored were Coastal Services, Coastal Connections, Fellow News, and a special publication, Local Strategies for Addressing Climate Change. The Center was recognized in a wide range of categories that included Government Publication, Interview/Personal Profile, Cover, Editorial, Climate Change Writing, Public Service Series, and One-of-a-Kind: Climate Change Publications. Former Coastal Fellow Honored at CZ 09. Former NOAA Coastal Management Fellow Peter Slovinsky received the Orville T. Magoon Award for Volunteerism and Community Service at the 2009 Coastal Zone Conference in Boston. Slovinsky completed his coastal management fellowship in Maine in 2003 and currently works as a senior coastal geologist with the Maine Geological Survey. He earned this award primarily for his work as founding member and chair of the Northern New England Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. The NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship is administered by the Center. 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 Coastal Community Planning and Development December 15 to 16 Negotiating for Coastal Resources Project Design and Evaluation Public Issues and Conflict Management October 14 to 15 * 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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