Special Interest Meetings
Monday, January 25
Morning SIMs
9:00 a.m. to Noon
Applying National Inundation Tools & Products to Local Decisions: Coastal Flooding Practitioner and Tool Developer Co-Working Session (half day)
Presenters:
Lauren Bissonnette, NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management, lauren.bissonnette@noaa.gov
Brenna Sweetman, NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management, brenna.sweetman@noaa.gov
Kate McClure, National Sea Grant Office/University of Maryland Sea Grant, Kate.McClure@noaa.gov
This Coastal Inundation Community of Practice session brings together NOAA and USGS tool developers with coastal flooding practitioners to work through real-world inundation challenges using national models and datasets. Featured tools and datasets include the Sea Level Calculator, Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper, High Tide Flooding Outlooks, Coastal Ocean Reanalysis (CORA), the Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS) and Hazard Exposure Reporting and Analytics (HERA) tools, and the Total Water Level and Coastal Change Forecast Viewer.
Moving beyond standard tool capability overviews, participants will work together to analyze local inundation situations and explore scenario-based questions with technical experts in small groups. The session will provide participants with the opportunity to connect with peers, engage with technical experts, and learn through hands-on experience using national coastal inundation tools and datasets. Participants will also have the opportunity to provide direct feedback to developers on local needs and technical gaps, which will inform future updates and offerings.
The Coastal Inundation Community of Practice and this session are open to all practitioners addressing current and future coastal flooding. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop to fully participate in activities.
Breaking Ground 2027: Technical Elements of Improved Flood Resilience Standards in the New Building Codes
Presenter:
Chad Berginnis, CFM, Executive Director, Association of State Floodplain Managers, chad@floods.org
This session will focus on the significant improvements in the 2027 International Building Code and International Residential Code that are related to siting and building structures to withstand increasing flood risk.
Afternoon SIMs
1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Ethics for GIS Professionals
Presenter:
Louie Greenwell, GISP, CFM, Certification, Training and Technology Director, Association of State Floodplain Managers, louie@floods.org
Professional Ethics play an important role in our society, especially when reporting data and sensitive information to the public. Attendees will discuss various scenarios and learn how to navigate ethical challenges towards a better outcome.
1:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Application of National Water Model Flood Inundation Maps for Coastal Decision Support (half day)
Presenters:
Jeffrey Dobur, NOAA’s National Weather Service Office of Water Prediction, Service Innovation Hydrologist, jeffrey.dobur@noaa.gov
Blair Holloway, NOAA’s National Weather Service Charleston Weather Forecast Office, Lead Meteorologist, blair.holloway@noaa.gov
Carson Pruitt, NOAA’s National Weather Service Office of Water Prediction, Service Development Division, carson.pruitt@noaa.gov
Riley McDermott, NOAA’s National Weather Service Office of Water Prediction, Service Development Division, riley.mcdermott@noaa.gov
Brenna Sweetman, NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management, Social Scientist, brenna.sweetman@noaa.gov
Communities situated along the coastal plain face unique flood risks driven by the complex hydrology of inland rivers. Communicating the spatial extent of these riverine hazards is critical for effective emergency response. To address this need, NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) leverages the National Water Model (NWM) to provide operational flood iInundation mapping (FIM). This service transforms complex hydrologic data into actionable, neighborhood-level visual guidance, empowering decision-makers with a comprehensive view of potential inland river flooding as it moves through vulnerable coastal plain landscapes.
For emergency managers, floodplain planners, and local officials, NWM flood inundation mapping serves as a transformative tool for Impact-based Decision Support Services (IDSS). By providing continuous, high-resolution guidance across millions of river reaches and ungauged areas, the service fills spatial informational gaps. Accessible through the public-facing National Water Prediction Service (NWPS) website, this spatial guidance expands critical water intelligence, enabling proactive hazard mitigation and targeted response to riverine flood events.
While current NWM FIM capabilities significantly enhance resilience against inland river flooding, the National Weather Service is actively developing the next generation of predictive tools to comprehensively support decision-makers at the immediate land-sea interface with coastal total water level (TWL). Planned as a future operational enhancement, the TWL framework will seamlessly couple this advanced inland hydrologic routing with highly dynamic ocean boundary conditions, including astronomical tides and storm surge. This presentation and interactive session will showcase how decision-makers can successfully apply current NWM flood inundation mapping to safeguard coastal plain communities from riverine threats while providing a forward-looking glimpse into how the future integration of total water level will deliver even more precise, unified inundation mapping where inland rivers meet the sea.
Transforming Coastal Management with UAS Mapping: Expanding Enterprise Workflows, Multi-Sensor Analytics, and Community Resilience
Presenters:
Michael Griffin, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Turning Flight into Insight: Using Drones and GIS to Advance Coastal Resource Management in North Carolina
Mike Willis, JOA Surveys, LLC, Building Local Geospatial Capacity for Resilient Coasts in Western Alaska
Frank Marshall, Coastal Protection Engineering of North Carolina, Inc., The Application of Drone Technology to Monitor and Assess Coastal Environments and Projects
Skyler Wolverton, Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, Mnomen (Wild Rice) Monitoring with Drones
Eric Kencel, AECOM and Erin Benford, AECOM, Empowering Coastal Highway Resilience with UAS and Shoretype Mapping
Nick Carpenter, Old Dominion University, Eyes in the Sky, Tides on the Street: Drone Mapping Nuisance Flooding’s Toll on Coastal Roads
Zak Poulton, The Nature Conservancy, Coastal Change from Drone Flights: Developing a Repeatable UAS Monitoring Workflow at Wachapreague, Virginia
Moderated by Jamie Carter, NOAA Office for Coastal Management
Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) have rapidly evolved from field demonstration tools into vital operational infrastructure for coastal resource management and hazard monitoring. This special interest meeting explores the full operational life cycle of coastal drone mapping—from scaling pilot programs and deploying multi-sensor payloads to building repeatable analytical pipelines and empowering local community–observing networks.
Participants will explore how diverse organizations, including state environmental agencies, tribal natural resource departments, regional nonprofits, surveying firms, engineering firms, and municipal engineers, overcome complex coastal mapping challenges. Drawing on case studies from North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, and Western Alaska, the session highlights cutting-edge sensor integration (lidar, multispectral, thermal, magnetometer, and water sampling), oblique aerial photography, shoretype mapping, ground-truthing strategies, automated spatial scripting, and deep learning analytics. Attendees will gain actionable insights to help quantify coastal change, navigate regulatory hurdles, manage terabyte-scale geospatial data, and transform high-resolution aerial deliverables into field-ready map books and data products that support coastal resilience and infrastructure protection decision-making.