| "The more people who join in accessing the site and making contributions, the more useful it will become." | |
| Robert Bacon, South Carolina Sea Grant Extension Program |
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Each coastal state is vulnerable to some sort of natural disaster, whether it be hurricanes or floods, tornadoes or earthquakes. In an effort to reduce loss of life, property, and environmental resources, seven state Sea Grant programs created a web site that enables coastal resource managers to quickly exchange information about natural hazards.
The HazNet web site provides information and resources from Sea Grant programs, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other sources about natural hazards, existing planning efforts, and research. It includes a list of contacts in coastal states who are involved in hazards efforts, as well as a bulletin board and discussion group.
"It is really a framework, a tool," says Robert Bacon, leader of the South Carolina Sea Grant Extension Program. "The more people who join in accessing the site and making contributions, the more useful it will become."
Bacon says the idea for the web site came out of a meeting of southeastern Sea Grant programs "We were thinking we needed a way to address coastal hazards issues as a region. Sea Grant had already created a web site dealing with marinas, and we simply borrowed their concept."
When the national Sea Grant office put out a call for proposals, Sea Grant programs from the Southeast, along with Rhode Island, responded with a joint proposal to create HazNet and received funding for two years. They got to work and "divided tasks between programs, such as gathering and reviewing existing material" on hazards issues and research. They also began contacting hazards related organizations.
One of the organizations contacted was the NOAA Coastal Services Center. "Having never created a web site before, we needed some help," Bacon recalls. The group worked with the Center to create the web page and get HazNet on-line. "We supplied the contents; the Center supplied the technical expertise."
HazNet, which has been on-line for about a year, contains information on hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, coastal erosion, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. It lists hazards policies, and has information on topics such as mitigation and the built environment, and communication and education.
One of the benefits of the web site, Bacon says, is that "people won't have to reinvent the wheel. HazNet provides the resources that should help an organization find information that will be useful in their own community."
"It's still quite new," Bacon says. "I think we've been successful at creating the framework. Our challenge is to engage the rest of Sea Grant and the coastal management community enough in hazards issues to use it, and add their own information. We hope it will inspire a more focused attack on hazards-related issues."
HazNet can be found at www.haznet.org. For more information on the Sea Grant HazNet project, contact Robert Bacon at (843) 727-2075, or e-mail him at haznet@haznet.org.
