Coastal Sector Adaptation Strategies
This tab includes strategies for how to adapt to climate impacts in the coastal sector, including best practices and legal and policy analysis.
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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 2022
Following the directives issued in Executive Order JBE 2019-19 , which aimed to improve the state’s resilience in the face of changing environmental conditions, Louisiana’s Adaptive Governance Initiative (AGI) was developed to build government capacity and identify ways in which coastal changes will impact the work and responsibilities of various state agencies. The AGI developed various tools to assist agencies in identifying ways in which coastal change will impact their specific resources and responsibilities, and address how they might adapt to those vulnerabilities.
Related Organizations: Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA)
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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October 2020
The Energy and Environmental Study Institute’s (EESI) October 2020 report contains 30 actionable recommendations, guided by 6 principles, on how the federal government can better support coastal resilience. The report emphasizes throughout the importance of consultation with local communities in designing programs and policies related to adaptation and resilience to ensure their specific needs are met. It also describes how the policy recommendations can be implemented, including identifying Congressional Committees with relevant jurisdiction.
Related Organizations: Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI)
Resource Category: Solutions
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In Louisiana, a state-created land trust is supporting floodplain buyouts and helping families relocate out of vulnerable flood-prone areas. The Louisiana Land Trust (LLT) was created in 2005 to support buyouts after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. After more recent flood events, LLT expanded its role to help communities relocate to safer, higher ground areas. The land trust is helping to facilitate the resettlement of residents of the Pecan Acres subdivision in Pointe Coupee Parish and the Isle de Jean Charles community in Terrebonne Parish. The Pecan Acres subdivision is located in a lower-income neighborhood north of the City of New Roads, and has experienced repeated flooding 17 times over the past 20 years. LLT is working to help resettle approximately 40 households within the subdivision by acquiring their flood-prone properties, and supporting a development on higher ground where they can relocate. Isle de Jean Charles is a narrow island in South Terrebonne parish and is the home of the Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees and United Houma Nation tribes. The island has lost 98% of its land mass since 1955 and many residents have left as a result of increasing flooding, where encroaching seas often flood the only roadway connecting the island to the mainland. With funding from the , the state is working to support implementation of a tribal resettlement plan. LLT acquired the resettlement site, about 40 miles north of the island that will be redeveloped. Eligible and participating families and individuals will be offered properties on the site with a five-year forgivable mortgage. Both the Pecan Acres and Isle de Jean Charles resettlement developments will incorporate resilient and green design features (including elevation about FEMA minimum standards, LEED certified construction, green infrastructure, and community amenities like parks) and will enable the residents to relocate together, maintaining social bonds and cohesion. This example demonstrates how land trusts can support efforts to relocate whole communities, and support development of sustainable and resilient receiving communities.
Related Organizations: Louisiana Office of Community Development - Disaster Recovery Unit (OCD-DRU) , Louisiana Land Trust
Resource Category: Solutions
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July 15, 2020
Managed retreat, or the voluntary movement and transition of people and ecosystems away from vulnerable coastal areas, is increasingly becoming part of the conversation as coastal states and communities face difficult questions on how best to protect people, development, infrastructure, and coastal ecosystems from sea-level rise, flooding, and land loss. Georgetown Climate Center’s new Managed Retreat Toolkit combines legal and policy tools, best and emerging practices, and case studies to support peer learning and decisionmaking around managed retreat and climate adaptation.
Related Organizations: Georgetown Climate Center
Authors or Affiliated Users: Georgetown Climate Center , Katie Spidalieri , Annie Bennett
Resource Category: Solutions
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July 15, 2020
The coastal town of Hampton, New Hampshire has identified the need for long-term climate adaptation planning to address the impacts of sea-level rise and improve community resilience to coastal flooding through a state-local, public-private partnership. This ongoing adaptation planning process that started in 2018 is being led by the Seabrook–Hamptons Estuary Alliance (SHEA) — a local conservation nonprofit — with support from others including the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services Coastal Program (NH Coastal Program) and town officials and staff. The approach taken by SHEA and the NH Coastal Program offers a unique example of community-driven, multifaceted planning focused on informing and educating the community through a series of workshops and surveys to gauge awareness and opinions across a range of different adaptation strategies. The adaptation strategies presented to the community for consideration include: protection (“keep water out”), accommodation (“live with water”), and managed retreat or relocation (“get out of the water’s way”). The results of these efforts are being used to inform local actions going forward. Policymakers and planners in other municipalities may find Hampton’s work instructive for how to increase awareness of the benefits and tradeoffs of retreat across a spectrum of adaptation strategies at the outset of community-driven, public-private decisionmaking processes. This case study is one of 17 case studies featured in a report written by the Georgetown Climate Center, Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas: Lessons and Tools from 17 Case Studies.
Resource Category: Solutions
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July 15, 2020
Following Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Oakwood Beach on Staten Island in New York City became the first community to take advantage of New York State’s post-Sandy buyout program to plan for retreat in a model that could be replicated in other vulnerable coastal locations. The members of the small community formed the Oakwood Beach Buyout Committee, and petitioned the state government to buy out entire neighborhoods, which resulted in large-scale risk reduction and cost-saving benefits compared to individual buyouts. Less than three months after Sandy, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a state-funded buyout program, pledging upwards of $200 million in funding and financial incentives to relocate families in high flood risk areas in places like Oakwood Beach. One year later, 184 out of 185 homeowners applied to the program — and by 2015, 180 of those homeowners were accepted to participate in the state’s voluntary buyout program. This process can serve as an example of a successful, community-led voluntary buyout effort that can be supported by state and local government retreat programs or projects in other jurisdictions. This case study is one of 17 case studies featured in a report written by the Georgetown Climate Center, Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas: Lessons and Tools from 17 Case Studies.
Resource Category: Solutions
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July 15, 2020
Woodbridge Township, New Jersey is working with the New Jersey Blue Acres Program to implement a neighborhood-wide buyout that can serve as an example for other jurisdictions considering larger-scale retreat from coastal areas. Following significant damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Woodbridge applied to participate in the New Jersey Blue Acres Buyout Program. With the support of the state, local elected officials in Woodbridge, including the mayor, committed to a community-based approach and prioritized flood mitigation and future safety and emergency management benefits over potential tax base losses if residents relocated outside of the township. As a result of this approach and an extensive community engagement process, nearly 200 property owners accepted a buyout offer. Once structures are demolished, the township is restoring bought-out land to create a natural flood buffer. The township established an Open Space Conservation/Resiliency Zone to institutionalize protections for this area by prohibiting new development and discouraging redevelopment. Woodbridge’s example demonstrates how comprehensive, community-based approaches to buyouts can maximize long-term benefits for communities and the environment. Other local governments can consider partnering with their states and residents, among others, to use buyouts as a retreat strategy to make communities more resilient. This case study is one of 17 case studies featured in a report written by the Georgetown Climate Center, Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas: Lessons and Tools from 17 Case Studies.
Resource Category: Solutions
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Through GreenPrint and Program Open Space, the State of Maryland has established a set of land conservation and acquisition data tools and programs to protect open space, environmental resources, and rural lands to meet statewide ecological objectives. The tools and programs are used to help the state adapt to climate change by removing barriers to the inland migration of coastal ecosystems in response to impacts like sea-level rise and land loss. Specifically, a statewide mapping tool called Maryland GreenPrint, which displays lands and watersheds of high ecological value, supports prioritized and transparent decision making, and increased resilience for vulnerable coastal habitats.
Related Organizations: State of Maryland
Resource Category: Solutions
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In 1999, the Florida Legislature passed the Florida Forever Act that established the Florida Forever land acquisition and protection program. The Florida Forever program serves as the state’s blueprint for conservation of natural resources. Through the Florida Forever program, the state is implementing effective land acquisition and preservation strategies supported by mapping tools and ecological data that help the state conduct scientific review and establish conservation priorities based upon climate change risks. Florida’s state legislature prioritized climate change considerations in the Florida Forever Act (Florida Stat. ch. 259.105(17)(d) (2018)) by requiring the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of State Lands to evaluate lands for acquisition based on their potential benefits to sequester carbon or adapt to climate change impacts, among other criteria. Florida Forever can serve as an example of how other governments and partners can incorporate climate change into land acquisition programs to enhance adaptation and natural resource conservation.
Related Organizations: State of Florida Department of Transportation
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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