Explore resources and examples, including local ordinances, that can help local governments adapt to, mitigate, or prepare for impacts of flooding and sea-level rise.
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Resource
Updated Oct 2, 2025
The city of Satellite Beach, FL, published updates to its floodplain management ordinance in 2014, elevating freeboard requirements for critical facilities to include consideration of the 0.2-percent annual chance flood hazard area (500-year floodplain).
Related Organizations: City of Satellite Beach, Florida
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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July 9, 2025
The Ocean City, Maryland Code of Ordinances includes a comprehensive flood damage prevention policy (Chapter 38, Article II). The policy, which includes both building hardening standards and floodplain management rules, is meant to protect people, property, and the environment from the impacts of coastal flooding in the city by restricting construction and development in high-risk areas.
Related Organizations: Ocean City, Maryland
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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October 31, 2025
Georgetown Climate Center studied local ordinance-centered approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and identifying and reducing climate-driven flood risk in an October 2025 report, “Local Ordinances for Climate Adaptation & Mitigation. ” As part of that project, GCC’s research identified 11 ordinances from Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, New Hampshire, and New Jersey that represent some of the best uses of local ordinances to advance climate adaptation and protect people and property.
Related Organizations: Georgetown Climate Center
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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May 16, 2025
In May 2025, the Hampton, New Hampshire Planning Board adopted the annual update of the Zoning Ordinance and Building Codes to restrict development of critical facilities in flood-prone areas, incorporate sea-level rise, and update freeboard values.
Related Organizations: Hampton Planning Board
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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January 2025
The Coastal Hazards Overlay Guidebook, published January 2025, by North Carolina State University provides a framework to help design and integrate a coastal hazards overlay district into existing local codes and standards in order to guide resilience efforts and requirements within geographically defined areas.
Related Organizations: North Carolina State University
Authors or Affiliated Users: Gavin Smith, Chitali Biswas
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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November 13, 2024
The California Coastal Commission’s Adopted Sea Level Rise Policy Guidance offers an overview of the best available science on sea-level rise for California, coastal adaptation strategies, and recommended methodology for addressing sea-level rise in Coastal Commission planning and regulatory actions. The Sea Level Rise Policy Guidance was first released in 2015, amended with a Science Update in 2018, and amended again with an update in 2024. The new update reflects the best available science on sea-level rise, implements new legislation in the form of Senate Bill 272 (2023), and integrates environmental justice principles.
Related Organizations: California Coastal Commission
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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May 15, 2023
In a bid to promote public health and safety while also limiting flood-related losses, the City of Woodbury, New Jersey, passed Ordinance no. 2386.23, which introduces regulations for development in flood hazard areas. Most notably, the ordinance establishes additional freeboard for critical facilities, and directly points to the authority of the American Society of Civil Engineers in its standard for Flood Resistant Design and Construction (ASCE 24) as the explanation for doing so.
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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Updated April 11, 2023
Since 2008, the Town of West Hartford, CT has passed updates to its development regulations for the Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA; §177-8 of the municipal zoning code) that aim to protect people and the built environment from the impacts of flooding, notably expanding freeboard requirements in 2023.
Related Organizations: Town of West Hartford, Connecticut
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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October 2022
In October 2022, the South San Francisco, CA City Council, updated its zoning code to incorporate a Flood Plain/Sea Level Rise (SLR) overlay district intended to “mitigate the impacts of sea level rise, and protect the health, safety, and welfare of residents of [South San Francisco]. ” The additional purposes of the overlay district are to “limit the potential impact of coastal flooding and erosion patterns on coastal development,” adapt to climate change, create adaptation strategies with a priority on long-term resilience, “establish standards consistent with the San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District,” introduce “flood-proof” construction to South San Francisco, and restore creek ecologies to build resilience.
Related Organizations: City of South San Francisco, California
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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2022
The Borough of Avalon, New Jersey updated their Floodplain Ordinance in 2022 by passing Ord. No. 849-2022, incorporating expanded areas subject to regulation and heightened standards designed to better ensure flood protection of structures.
Related Organizations: Borough of Avalon
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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