Coastal Resilience in the Southeast

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The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) held a briefing on initiatives that are helping protect Southeast ecosystems and communities from erosion, storms, and other coastal hazards. The briefing showcased nature-based solutions that can protect human lives and property from extreme weather and flooding while creating habitat for wildlife and supporting various coastal industries. These techniques can also be paired with traditional “gray” infrastructure to meet a greater variety of planning needs.

Southeast communities have been devastated by large storms in recent years. As state and local governments rebuild and prepare for the next hurricane season, this briefing aims to provide a sample of tools, policies, and programs along the coast that are helping communities and their environments become more resilient.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

 

Heidi Stiller, South Regional Director, Office for Coastal Management, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

• The Office for Coastal Management (OCM) works to fulfill NOAA’s goal of making communities, ecosystems, and economies resilient to change by enacting programs in collaboration with actors across a variety of sectors.
• The National Coastal Zone Management Program provides technical and financial services to states working on coastal resilience.
• Digital Coast is a data repository (with visualization and predictive tools) for a variety of organizations collaborating to find and build resilience-related resources for coastal decision-makers.
• Natural infrastructure is a critical component of coastal ecosystems and communities. Nature-based solutions benefit ecosystems and economies by reducing coastal hazards, providing ecosystem services, and supporting recreational opportunities.
• OCM has several visualization tools to help coastal decision-makers identify and plan for hazards.
  • The Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper helps communities visualize and map natural hazards to begin developing solutions.
  • The Sea Level Rise Viewer helps decision-makers visualize sea-level rise scenarios applied to their community, which have been used to assess vulnerability and adopt flooding adaptation plans.
• OCM provides funding for coastal communities through the National Coastal Resilience Fund and Regional Coastal Resilience Projects. This funding has been used to support community projects in the Southeast, such as the state of Georgia’s plans for post-disaster management (these plans have already been used by communities responding to disasters).

 

Dr. Lexia Weaver, Coastal Scientist and Central Regional Manager, North Carolina Coastal Federation (NCCF)

• The goal of NCCF is to ensure clean coastal waters by establishing living shorelines that reduce erosion, provide habitat, allow oyster populations to thrive, and keep coasts free of marine debris. Effective coastal management is accomplished through design and permitting.
• Most coasts in North Carolina have been affected by shoreline erosion, and traditional approaches to shore preservation (e.g., bulkheads) lead to the loss of salt marsh ecosystems and oyster habitats.
• Living shorelines use marsh grasses and oysters to dissipate wave energy, and are a more resilient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly alternative to hard infrastructure.
  • Many types of living shorelines can be set up, based on the type of wave energy to dissipate and the extent of shoreline erosion at a site. Mesh bags filled with recycled oyster shells are a commonly used material, but NCCF is working with companies to test better, plastic-free, alternatives to mesh bags.
• Co-benefits of living shorelines include salt marsh ecosystem restoration, improved water quality, and increased property value and oyster habitat.
• Changes to the Coastal Area Management Act’s permitting requirements have made living shoreline projects as easy to install as bulkheads.
• Living shorelines have been installed throughout North Carolina by private homeowners, community organizations, and local governments. Projects are often funded through cost-sharing programs in which landowners pay part of the cost and grants are used to fund the rest.
• To increase the use of living shorelines, regulatory and resource agencies should promote the technique and funding should be easily available through financial incentive programs, grants, short-term construction insurance, and business programs for marine contractors.

 

Ross Weaver, Program Assistant Director, Wetlands Watch

• The rate of sea level rise has doubled from the 1953-1983 period to the 1996-2014 period. The highest sea level rise is occurring on the East Coast, and ecosystems are already being affected by saltwater intrusion.
  • Sea level rise threatens coastal wetlands, which provide both economic and environmental benefits.
• Sea level rise is expected to make storm surges larger and more damaging, especially to houses that are not required to have flood insurance because they are outside of existing regulatory floodplains.
• Nuisance flooding is also increasing and threatens to impact critical infrastructure and put a strain on stormwater systems in the Southeast.
  • Virginia Beach has recognized the compounding effects of sudden rain events, high tides, and sea level rise and is updating its stormwater system.
• Virginia is joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and will direct the $100 million in annual revenue generated from the carbon cap and trade system toward flood preparedness and energy efficiency.
  • Executive Order #24 mandates the creation of a Coastal Resilience Master Plan and State Flood Risk Management Standard. The Master Plan is a “hugely valuable tool” that directs federal funding after a natural disaster and allows for more efficient funding allocation.
• Military infrastructure in the Southeast is also threatened by sea level rise, which is a national security issue. Norfolk and Virginia Beach have worked with the military to develop Joint Land Use Studies to create adaptation strategies.
• Norfolk implemented a Citywide Resilience Zoning Strategy that includes a requirement for developers to include resilience measures.
• The region may need to consider managed retreat, or moving people out of the most flood-prone areas.
• Funding is the biggest challenge in future resilience planning. Current FEMA funding is insufficient
• Localities experience barriers to finding and applying for grants, and the Army Corps cost-benefit analysis process often makes it more difficult for low and moderate-income neighborhoods to obtain funding.

 

Joanna Walczak, Southeast Regional Administrator, Florida Department of Environmental Protection

• Florida’s coral reef is the largest continental barrier reef in the United States and plays a key role in protecting the Southeastern shoreline while also providing economic benefits to fisheries, biomedical exploration, and tourism.
  • The coral reef provides $355 million in shoreline protection and $320 million annually in economic activity.
• The reef is vulnerable to both global stressors such as extreme thermal events, pathogens, and ocean and coastal acidification, as well as to local stressors such as coastal construction, “over-loving” of coral reefs, and pollutants.
• Stressed coral reefs are less able to fend off diseases. Florida’s reef is experiencing an outbreak of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, a highly infectious disease with a high mortality rate that has spread throughout the reef into the Atlantic Caribbean.
  • The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is working with local, state, and federal governments, academia, non-governmental organizations, and private partners to respond to the disease in the short and long term.
  • Short term approaches include identifying the pathogen, characterizing the disease, and conducting lab and field trials to treat, rescue, and propagate corals.
  • Long term approaches focus on addressing ecosystem stressors and resilience. This includes working with state agencies to restore Florida’s water quality, public-private partnerships for ecosystem restoration, and a feasibility study for coral reef insurance that would recognize the economic and ecological benefits of reefs.

 

Q&A

 

What steps can be taken to devote more resources to more sustainable infrastructure projects like living shorelines and fewer to building things like bulkheads?

• Stiller: Some good innovations are happening to encourage resilient measures. In North Carolina, living shorelines are now on equal footing with bulkheads in terms of permitting, so it is now just as easy to create a living shoreline as a bulkhead. Other steps could be new funding sources as well as new investments in mitigation and resilience at the federal level, including FEMA’s new Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant - Mitigation Program.
• L. Weaver: Fund projects that will benefit the environment. It is now easier to get funding for living shorelines than for bulkheads.
• R. Weaver: Permitting regulations can create a preference for sustainable infrastructure projects. In Virginia now, to build a bulkhead, a developer must prove that a living shoreline is not suitable for that site.
• Walczak: Incentivizing sustainable projects in regulatory models, such as designing cost-benefit analyses to value factors other than immediate economic benefits.

 

How can the permitting process for living shorelines be made easier at the local, state, and federal levels?

• L. Weaver: In North Carolina, the process of changing permitting regulations was started by the Division of Coastal Management; it held a series of meetings with stakeholders to discuss permitting conditions and reach an agreement on changes to make. Everyone came to the table to provide input, and this approach could probably be replicated in other states.
• Stiller: South Carolina is working on changing the permitting process right now. Living shorelines are being studied to develop regulations that protect the environment and help mitigate permitting challenges.
• Walczak: In rapidly changing ecosystems, the regulatory structure is not flexible enough to keep up with the rate at which decisions have to be made. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is working closely with federal partners to look for opportunities to adapt the regulatory framework, and this is an issue at the state, local, and federal levels.
• R. Weaver: There have been talks about simplifying the permitting process. For example, Virginia has made living shorelines the de facto shoreline management tactic.