Completed: September 2020.
Funding: National Association of Counties Research Foundation.
Partners: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Coastal States Organization.
Through a 2017 National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Resilience Grant, the National Association of Counties (NACo) – in partnership with the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) and the Coastal States Organization (CSO) – launched the Strengthening Coastal Counties’ Resilience program. This 3-year project leveraged the network of technical experts shared across the partner organizations to improve communication between coastal management professionals and local elected officials.
The Local Government Guide to Coastal Resilience was created to build the capacity of coastal managers in the Gulf of Mexico Region to educate and work with their local elected officials on coastal hazards and to effectively utilize the high-level coastal management resources available to them. In Spring 2018, the Coastal Counties Resilience Challenge invited counties with populations of less than 250,000 in the Gulf of Mexico Region to form multidisciplinary teams to apply to attend a workshop and receive technical assistance on their coastal resilience efforts. A follow-up second workshop was held in South Padre Island, Texas in November 2019 to assess progress by each and team and provide them with continued technical support.