Communicating About Coastal Flood Risk

For communities facing coastal flooding, receiving timely, accurate information about flood risk is critical to making good decisions. But to be truly effective, that information must come in formats people can understand, with clear messages about how to respond, and must be easily shared with friends, family and neighbors.

This page is  for coastal floodplain residents, floodplain managers, emergency managers and anyone else interested in understanding more about coastal flood risk and how to improve community response to coastal floods. Visitors to this site will find a growing resource of information about coastal flooding, including resources for coastal floodplain property owners trying to learn more about their risk and ways to prepare and reduce losses.

NNC to study NWS coastal flood forecast and warning tools

In January 2014, NNC was awarded a grant by the New Jersey Seagrant Consortium to undertake the social science research study, “They Had the Facts, Why Didn’t They Act?” about public use of National Weather Service coastal flood forecast and warning tools. NNC’s grant was one of 10 projects funded as part of the NJSC’s Coastal Storm Awareness Program, which aims to improve community response to coastal flood events. For more about NNC’s project, click here. For more about the Coastal Storm Awareness Program, click here.

NNC Releases Study Findings

In April 2015, Nurture Nature Center released the final report for its study, “They Had the Facts, Why Didn’t They Act?: Understanding and Improving Public Response to NWS Coastal Flood Forecasts.” Findings suggest that emergency briefings are an important communication tool for the public, and the report makes other suggestions for improving communicating during coastal flood events. You can find the full report here.

The above video and other coastal flooding resources on this site were prepared by Nurture Nature Center using Federal funds under the Coastal Storm Awareness Program (NOAA awards NA13OAR4830227, NA13OAR4830228, NA13OAR4830229) from the National Sea Grant College Program, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The Federal funds were provided via appropriations under the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-2) and the Sea Grant Act (33 U.S.C. 1121 et seq.). Funding was awarded to the financial hosts of the Sea Grant College Programs in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York via their financial host institutions, the University of Connecticut, the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium, and the Research Foundation of State University of New York, respectively. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Sea Grant College Program, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Commerce, nor any of the other listed organizations.