Special Interest Meetings

Special Interest Meetings

Monday, February 6:

8:30 to 11:30 a.m.

Mapping Coastal Inundation: Keeping Current with New Data, Tools, and Trends THIS SIM IS FULL

This session focuses on the technical components of inundation mapping, including new data and methods for mapping sea level rise and high tide flooding. The session provides an informative, hands-on approach to keeping current with inundation mapping topics as well as local and national scenarios for potential impact analysis. Technically driven and informative, this special interest meeting will provide relevant information for both coastal managers and technical mapping staff.

The session will include lectures and mapping demonstrations that are at the core of many of NOAA’s coastal products, tools, and services. A brief introductory presentation will provide an overview of updates to climate-related inundation science. Live demonstrations will include 1) exploring and visualizing elevation data from NOAA’s Data Access Viewer and the U.S. Interagency Elevation Inventory; 2) working with multiple elevation data sets to create seamless digital elevation models; 3) using the VDatum online datum transformation tool and creating tidal surfaces to account for tidal variability in mapping water levels; 4) incorporating the latest local sea level rise scenarios into inundation mapping products; and 5) examining new national high tide flooding thresholds with new products. Participant questions and comments are welcome during the demonstrations to promote an informal live discussion of technical topics.

High Resolution Land Cover 101: What is it? Where is it? and How do you use it?

Current, accurate land cover is a common foundational data set that can be used to address a wide range of management issues, from flooding risk and natural infrastructure assessment to policy evaluation and land use planning. Knowing what exists on the ground gives managers and planners more information, and the better the data, the better their understanding.

NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management has long been a source of consistent, accurate land cover information for the coastal U.S., as produced through its Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP). And with recent advances in available data and mapping technologies, such as artificial intelligence, NOAA has been working to establish an operational higher-resolution land cover product line, bringing the national C-CAP framework to the local level and to support more site-specific decision-making. While faster, cheaper, better has become possible, it is also important to understand that not all land cover data is created equal. Faster does not always mean fast, cheaper does not necessarily mean cheap, and better does not mean good enough to answer all questions with a simple click of a button.

This presentation will provide an overview on 1) key aspects, or criteria, of high-resolution land cover that potential consumers can use to evaluate such data for their needs and 2) the specifications, current status, and vision for NOAA’s high-resolution, national C-CAP products. In addition, several short talks focused on examples from around the country will highlight where this data has been applied for impact. By knowing more about what to look for, what is coming, and how it can be used, we are hoping that attendees will walk away with a better idea of how this data might better help them in their work.

9:00 to 11:30 a.m.

Mitigation Planning Policy Updates and How to Support Tribal Mitigation Planning

This SIM will be delivered by FEMA’s National Mitigation Planning Program, in partnership with NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management. Mitigation planning means risk-informed decision making. It begins with state, tribal and local governments identifying natural disaster risks and vulnerabilities that are common in their area, and developing long-term strategies for protecting people and property from similar events. As of Sept. 30, 2022, all 50 states, DC, 5 territories, over 25,500 local governments and 238 tribal governments have approved or approvable-pending-adoption mitigation plans. The nation’s population who live in communities with current mitigation plans is over 85%.

The session will highlight the Tribal mitigation planning requirements, and how working with Tribes could be different from state and local mitigation planning. Participants will also gain an understanding of the various learning resources that NOAA’s Digital Coast offers to assist in the development of mitigation strategies, and how they can efficiently access them through the Digital Coast platform.

Monday, February 6: 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

Coastal Flooding and Inundation Information and Services at Climate Timescales to Reduce Risk and Improve Resilience THIS SIM FULL

NOAA has recently been focusing on coastal flooding and inundation threats beyond the typical “watch and warning” time scale. The past is no longer the key to the present as climate datasets such as temperature, precipitation, and coastal and lake water levels are no longer stationary. Coastal inundation is likely to become even more frequent and intense. For example, the U.S. annual high tide flooding frequency in 2020 was more than twice that in the year 2000. By 2050, it is likely to be 5- to 15-fold higher—potentially reaching up to 180 days per year of flooding in some locations and effectively becoming the new high tide. To address this increasing threat with increases in funding over the next 5 years, NOAA will

• Produce coastal inundation information and services consisting of an authoritative and nationally consistent set of data, products, applications, and decision-support. These information and services will be focused on subseasonal to decadal and centennial timescales and will support local decision-making.
• Sustain continuous engagement with stakeholders and users to ensure that new and existing products and services are built, refined, and delivered—especially to socially and economically vulnerable populations—and use strategies like citizen science to co-develop, provide, and apply actionable information to assist decision-making.

This session will outline the ongoing efforts to achieve these objectives and will touch on modeling efforts, data and products, decision-support services, and access. Existing and future data and products will be shown and user feedback from the session collected.

CMECS Updates and Application: Understanding Data, Tools, Technical Limits, and Possibilities

This special interest meeting will share proposed updates to the Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) Substrate, Geoform, and Biotic components recommended by three technical working groups. Potential users will be able to explore ways the revised standard can be applied to data and used by managers. There will also be an opportunity for participants to propose new updates to CMECS and identify additional knowledge gaps.

The session will also explore what levels of the CMECS framework can be reached using different data. Key topics will include describing complex observations including co-occurring elements, the use of modifiers, and when observational data should be considered a supplement to actual CMECS units. To facilitate this discussion, meeting organizers will provide a brief CMECS overview and how a range of technologies have been used to develop CMECS data at different scales in applied projects.

Next Gen Tribal Engagement Community of Practice

This special training session will be delivered by James Rattling Leaf, Sr., Sicangu Lakota Oyate, Tribal liaison with the Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab and the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center. The training will outline recommendations for working with Tribal communities based on the knowledge that long-term relationship building with these communities is the foundation upon which educational programs, research collaborations, and other initiatives must be co-created.

This training seeks to define best practices in approach and process for establishing and maintaining effective collaborations with Indigenous communities that respect sovereignty and self-determination and which have application across many types of efforts.

These practices will have a lasting impact on equity, diversity, and inclusion at universities, professional societies, educational organizations, and agencies, on the STEM workforce broadly, and for Indigenous youth and communities toward the realization of their dreams and aspirations.