Coastal Services Center

Any agencies typically work on state coastal hazards issues, which can make it hard for property owners, teachers and students, and even coastal resource managers to know where to turn for information and assistance. To solve this dilemma, Maryland coastal managers helped lead an effort to bring together all the state's coastal hazards information and tools onto a single website.

"Our vision was having a one-stop shop for coastal hazards in Maryland," says Audra Luscher, coastal hazards specialist for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Coastal Zone Management Program. "We've been working on hazards for five years, and we wanted a centralized place where everyone could access all the great stuff we've been working on."

The result is Maryland Shorelines Online, a coastal hazards Web portal that enhances state agency coordination and provides information to a variety of users on assistance and tools needed to understand, assess, and manage hazards issues.

The Web portal provides everything from policies and regulations to information on technical and financial assistance. It gives users access to geographic information system (GIS) maps and shoreline inventory tools, as well as teacher lesson plans and fact sheets.

"We were at one of those points where technology became available that could meet our needs," Luscher says. "Internet mapping systems became more accessible and widely used and will soon allow us to include very memory-intensive data sets, such as lidar elevation data."

The Maryland Coastal Program worked with Towson University Center for Geographic Information Sciences and Maryland Geological Survey to develop and design the website.

Luscher notes that there was "a lot of discussion up front" between state agencies working on hazards issues to determine the scope and content of the website. Needs assessments of various groups, including local and county governments and citizens' groups, also were used.

"We wanted to tailor it to all of our needs," she says.

One of those needs included developing a training manual and users' guide for the site. In addition to sending out press releases and working with the media to attract users, coastal program staff members went on the road to festivals and meetings and provided training sessions to targeted user groups.

Survey feedback shows that the site is being used by a "wide network of users," Luscher says, with homeowners using the site the most. Government staff members also are using the site to work with homeowners to help them understand their hazards risks.

"The Web was the perfect tool for this," Luscher says. "When you have aerial imagery and you can see water overlying the majority of a county, it's easier for homeowners to understand. It's also easy for resource managers to print one page off and have a dialogue about it."

To view Maryland Shorelines Online, point your browser to http://shorelines.dnr.state.md.us.
For more information, contact Audra Luscher at (410) 260-8743, or ALuscher@dnr.state.md.us.