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Strategic Objective
Strengthen the resiliency of communities and regions by delivering targeted services to build capacity. (NOAA, NIST, EDA)
Strategic Objective
Overview
Many U.S. communities face significant environmental changes, natural disasters, or economic disruptions. They need plans to reduce the effects, adapt to future changes, and support long-term recovery efforts. A key component of these plans should be actionable information to aid in managing risk and in developing and evaluating options to adapt to and mitigate future environmental and economic change. The Department has been an essential source of information needed to invigorate communities, ecosystems, and economies.
The Department will strengthen community-based resilience efforts. It will promote preparedness, protect critical public resources, support science and research germane to preparedness and resilience, and ensure that federal operations continue to serve citizens in a changing climate. The means to these ends will be building on a strong scientific foundation and decades of engagement with interagency, academic, and private sector partners.
Read Less...Progress Update
During FY 2014, the Department of Commerce (DOC) made progress in strengthening the resiliency of communities and regions through steady execution toward several key strategies supporting this objective: building partnerships to produce and deliver climate information services; enhancement of coastal intelligence; leadership in development of a Disaster Resilience Framework; and helping communities leverage assets to build capacity for resilience. NOAA, NIST, EDA and ESA/Census have demonstrated their ability to collaborate productively around the topic of Resilience. A DOC-wide Resilience Summit is planned for January 26, 2015 for each of these bureaus and other Department contributors to discuss what can be done to bolster resiliency in communities around the country. This Objective met or exceeded its performance indicator targets in FY 2014.
Accomplishments include:
- A new tool, the Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper, was developed to provide coastal New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania with easy access to community-level flooding information. The tool displays county-level data about shallow coastal flooding, flood zones, storm surge, sea level rise, and a composite view of flood hazards.
- In response to early input from the State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, the Administration has developed the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, a website that provides centralized, authoritative, easy-to-use information, tools, and best practices to help communities prepare for and boost their resilience to the impacts of climate change. The Toolkit’s initial focus is helping the nation address challenges in the areas of coastal flood risk and food resilience and will expand to additional topics including human health, ecosystem vulnerability, water resource risks, energy supply and infrastructure, and transportation and supply chain risks.
- The 23rd PORTS® (Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System) system in the nation was made operational this year on the St. John’s River, in Florida. PORTS® provide mariners with accurate and reliable real-time information about environmental conditions in a seaport, greatly enhancing the safety and efficiency of maritime commerce. With 47 sensors located on 18 water level stations, the Jacksonville PORTS® is the second largest PORTS®.
- Active participation at NIST resilience workshops have resulted in a draft framework document that is 50% complete, with continued vetting and writing planned through 2015 to meet planned deadlines.
- NOAA’s Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center (DRC) sponsored or hosted 21 different meetings, workshops, and training events for over 4,500 state, regional and international participants in FY 2014. These included a Federal Regional Response Team meeting, a Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation class, a tropical storm preparedness exercise co-sponsored by the National Weather Service and DRC, and NOAA’s Science of Oil Spills class.
- EDA invested approximately $53M in 108 economic development projects to help communities and regions build the capacity for economic resilience, including infrastructure and resilience planning.
- EDA completed an initial draft of the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) Content Guidelines. In response to a new regulatory requirement, the Guidelines provide recommendations on how to integrate economic resiliency into the development of a CEDS.
- In FY 2014, the cumulative number of coastal, marine, and Great Lakes issue-based forecasting capabilities developed and used for management was 69, vs. 63 in FY 2013 and 58 in FY 2012.
- By the end of FY 2014, 5249 communities were using NOAA’s Digital Coast platform, a significant increase over 2900 at the end of FY 2013.
- In FY 2014, the percentage of U.S. coastal states and territories demonstrating annual improvements in resilience capacity to weather and climate hazards was 54%, vs. 57% in FY 2013 and 46% in FY 2012.
Next Steps in FY 2015:
- FY2015 Q1-Q4 – Participate in 2 response drills, exercises or coordination activities per quarter.
- FY2015 Q1 – Complete internal and external prioritization efforts to increase community focus on priority (i.e., update and better define relevant grant-tracking codes; inform/train regional staff on priority; modify and disseminate externally-focused grant priority information).
- FY2015 Q2 – NIST will hold a 4th Disaster Resilience Workshop (February 18-19 in San Diego, CA) in order to engage a wide community of stakeholders in discussions and improvements and to the latest draft of the Framework document, which is planned to be 75% complete by the time of the workshop.
- FY2015 Q2 – Award and administer EDA grants that reflect priority; undertake end-of-year status review of grants by analyzing estimated impacts of grants made in FY 2014 and adjust grant priorities and project definitions for FY 2015 to reflect lessons learned and to focus on high-potential impact grants.
- FY2015 Q2 – Publication of new CEDS Content Guidelines (January 2015).
- FY2015 Q3 – Post Disaster Resilience Framework Version 1.0 complete draft for public comment, as originally targeted as an action in the President’s Climate Action Plan, in order to provide an opportunity for communities to provide input and recommendations for the full Framework (April 2015)
- FY2015 Q4 – Provide accessible planning tools from NOAA partners by publishing narratives and data visualizations on NOAA’s Climate.gov website showing how NOAA advances understanding of Earth's climate, and how those advances benefit society. Target: publish 15 articles, 26 images, and 15 videos in Climate.gov in FY15.
- FY2015 Q4 – Establish one new PORTS® (location TBD).
- FY2015 Q4 – Increase NOAA Electronic Nautical Charts from 200 charts to 400 charts.
- FY2015 Q4 – Annual forecast and operational Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) bulletins for Lake Erie.
- FY2015 Q4 – Establish the Disaster Resilience Standards Panel, a diverse group of experts, to further improve and expand the Framework document and put it into practice in communities across the U.S. (July 2015).
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Strategic Goals
Strategic Goal:
Ensure communities and businesses have the necessary information, products, and services to prepare for and prosper in a changing environment
