Building Resilience to Challenges and Disruptions

The Mississippi-Alabama Gulf Coast hosts a robust population prone to severe weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes. A changing climate increases both the frequency and intensity of these severe weather events, posing significant issues for the Gulf Coast and its inhabitants. In the face of severe weather events, it is important to understand when, where, how, and why Gulf Coast residents and official personnel seek out and communicate about severe weather risk information. This was the focus of the current project: to identify communication and information practices and perceived barriers to public engagement with coastal threat information and mitigation/adaptation strategies among Gulf Coast risk decision-makers and community members. 


To address this need we conducted interviews and focus groups with risk decision makers (e.g., emergency managers and elected officials) and community members located in the southern-most emergency management areas of Mississippi and Alabama. To better understand how members of the public and risk decision-makers seek out information and communicate about severe weather, and their perceptions of official severe weather-related communication, we hosted three separate focus groups and conducted a series of interviews in June-August 2024. Specifically, the research investigated risk decision-maker and public habits and preferences regarding resources and sources of severe weather information and perceptions of how official sources of information attempt to gain public confidence, increase awareness and understanding of severe weather events, and encourage satisfaction with and enactment of behaviors to mitigate or minimize adverse outcomes associated with severe weather events. The results reveal commonalities, discrepancies, and perceived communication barriers among decision-makers and community members related to severe weather events in Mississippi-Alabama Gulf Coast communities. Results can be used to strengthen public communication planning and implementation before, during, and after severe weather events in the future. 

The Mississippi-Alabama Gulf Coast region is a diverse population hub with a significant number of cultural assets and economic resources that are vulnerable to the impacts of sea level rise, increased rainfall, storm surges, coastal flooding, and the increasing frequency and intensity of severe weather events like tropical storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes. These events pose a problem for the Gulf Coast, as they threaten property, infrastructure, industry, ecosystems, and human safety. Communication technologies have evolved substantially over time such that information about severe weather events can be disseminated rapidly through social media to aid in preparation, response, and recovery. However, more research is needed to understand how individuals use social media to prepare for, respond to, and recover from severe weather events.


This research analyzed patterns in social media conversations before, during, and after historical severe weather events in the Gulf Coast region. Textual data embedded in publicly available posts (N = ~3,090,400) on Twitter/X discussing Hurricanes Sally, Michael, and Zeta were downloaded and analyzed. Severe weather threat-related keywords were used to identify relevant content, and posts dated two weeks before each specific weather event until two months after the event subsided were collected. The Leximancer software package was used to conduct a computational content analysis of the data, eliciting themes from the text. Additionally, post frequencies by date were compiled into a time series to show how the volume of discussions changed over time, and stepwise segmented regression analysis was used to identify major shifts in conversation trajectory. These data demonstrate-for individual severe weather events and in aggregate-commonalities and differences in the nature and volume of social media conversations during severe weather events. Results can inform how emergency managers and response and recovery organizations communicate with the public before, during, and after future severe weather events. 

Floods are the most common weather-related disasters in the United States. While flooding occurs in every U.S. state and territory, coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to the compounding impacts of rising sea levels and the severity of storm surge. Flooding events impact communities for years afterwards, as homes, businesses, and civil infrastructure are slowly rebuilt. Between 1980 and 2023, 41 billion-dollar flooding disaster events affected the United States, although many more events didn't reach that monetary mark.


The engineering, floodplain management, and other resource management communities recognize NOAA as the authoritative source of precipitation frequency data. NOAA's Atlas 14 analyzes historical rainfall data to predict the likelihood of a rainfall event in any given year, and has served as the Nation's de-facto standard tool for designing, building, and operating infrastructure to withstand the forces of heavy precipitation and floods since 2004. 


The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) provided funding for NOAA to revise the Atlas 14 precipitation frequency standard. NOAA's revised "Atlas 15" is currently in development, with plans for incremental, location-specific releases over time. The Atlas 15 revision will enable communities to better prepare and plan for threats from severe storms and flooding, adapt to changing weather patterns, and mitigate disruptions for maximum community and environmental recovery, all while accounting for future climate projections. 


This presentation will compare the Atlas 15 revision to the older Atlas 14, demonstrate the new Atlas 15 web interface, and discuss the anticipated benefits of using Atlas 15 when making resilience-oriented decisions for coastal communities. This talk will also provide an opportunity for attendees to provide feedback on the new web interface and discuss how it may improve decision-making and resilience to challenges which result from extreme precipitation.

The City of Mobile has two ongoing major stormwater projects. The first is a GPS/GIS project mapping a City-wide inventory of all stormwater structures and pipes connecting them. Survey teams acquired survey grade information on the existing structures in the City's GIS system; the project obtained information to identify the individual structures and measured for type, depth, materials, size, and condition. The surveyed structures are QA/QC-ed before being imported into the GIS database to show the connectivity of stormwater pipes and ditches/channels. This tool will support future stormwater modeling efforts and provide survey-grade information for the City. Phase I of the work was recently completed and covered the Mobile City limits as of 2021. Since that time, three areas have been annexed by the City and will be covered in Phase II of the project.


The second is compiling a Stormwater Manual to address different storm water topics and solutions. This collection of volumes will expand upon an outdated Flood Plain Management Plan and address stormwater topics in accordance with current engineering practices. The first volume covers Low Impact Development (LID) Design and serves as a roadmap for the proper implementation of LID design principles in the City of Mobile. It guides users through different LID design options and their proper application. It is particularly useful for architects, planners, engineers, developers, homeowners, and citizens interested in incorporating LID design in their projects. The use of LID design remains optional, but this guide is a useful tool to many professionals working within the City of Mobile jurisdiction. Additional future volumes will include Water Quality Practice (WQP) Design, Hydrology & Drainage System Design, WQP Maintenance, and Plant & Tree Guidance.


The resulting products of these two projects are important tools to increase stormwater management and resiliency in the City of Mobile.

U.S. coasts are dynamic environments that play a crucial role in the nation's economy and cultural landscape. More than 128 million people reside in coastal counties across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the Great Lakes. These coastal regions are economic powerhouses, supporting jobs in defense, fishing, transportation, and tourism, significantly contributing to the U.S. gross domestic product. They serve as vital hubs of commerce, with seaports facilitating global trade. However, this economic and environmental vitality is increasingly threatened by climate change. The ongoing cumulative damages to both coastal natural and human systems pose severe risks to America's trillion-dollar coastal property market and public infrastructure. Rising global temperatures, more frequent storms, higher storm surges due to sea-level rise, and increased heavy precipitation events lead to heightened coastal flooding, erosion, and other climate-related hazards. These impacts exacerbate the vulnerability of coastal areas, posing risks to both the economy and the viability of communities reliant on coastal resources for their economic health and cultural integrity (Bilskie et al., 2016; Button & Harvey, 2015).
The vulnerability of coastal ecosystems to climate change has been a significant concern since the IPCC's first assessment report, underscoring the unique susceptibility of these areas due to their proximity to the ocean, diverse ecosystems, and high population density (Liu, 2023; Sterr, 2008). Coastal communities are particularly at risk, grappling with rapid development, population growth, and increasing extreme weather events (Yuliastuti et al., 2023). Addressing these challenges requires developing and implementing climate-compatible projects and sustainable coastal management practices. This paper examines examples of collaborative, resilience-focused engagement and projects for implementing such practices and innovative solutions that promote the health and wellbeing of coastal regions in the face of climate change.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched a Climate-Ready Nation (CRN) initiative, with the goal of empowering and supporting communities in making meaningful and sustainable actions to help reduce the impacts of climate change and build resilient communities. NOAA is also committed to making equity central to the CRN initiative, prioritizing the needs and goals of historically underserved communities and Tribal and Indigenous communities in the design and delivery of climate services. 


People and communities are impacted by and respond to climate-related challenges at a local level. NOAA's Regional Collaboration Network and Regional Climate Services Directors are working together to help make the breadth of NOAA's climate services more accessible and relevant at the local to regional scales. Climate services include accessible science, data, information, tools, and decision support, which are critical to ensure communities can make informed decisions regarding climate change.


Climate services are spread across many different parts of NOAA, and each of these parts of NOAA may have different connections with different partners and communities. To promote a shared understanding of what is available for the region, NOAA is conducting an inventory to build a catalog of its climate-related projects and services for the Gulf of Mexico, Southeast, and Caribbean. This catalog will be shared with responding or relevant NOAA groups, ensuring a valuable common baseline of information and contacts across these groups. With this information, each will be better prepared to respond to communities' climate-related questions and needs, even if the questions are outside of the group's direct expertise. It will also build contacts and connections between the different groups so they can better support each other, and will enable a more holistic look at potential gaps, requirements, or opportunities for future consideration.

Coastal risk is altering the way in which coastal cities are able to maintain functional access to everyday facilities, especially along our waterfronts. Physical design conditions for coastal structures should now be different from those used in the past. Existing infrastructure will need to be adapted to keep up with changing sea levels and storms. New approaches and design methods are needed to incorporate uncertainties and accommodate these impacts, both in the adaptation of existing facilities and in the design of new structures. This presentation will discuss design approaches proposed to assess sea level rise storm impacts for coastal infrastructure. The new approaches to incorporate future design criteria are not yet included in enforceable design standards in the US, but are already considered as best practices. Following on the need for updated approaches, we will discuss the planning for adaptation, the role of post-storm reconstruction planning, and inclusion of nature-based solutions (NbS, NNBF) as part of the adaptation strategies. This technical design approach will be presented also in context of the business decision-making process, such as transactional due diligence, financial analysis of climate risk and adaptation, and climate related financial disclosures.