Coastal Resilience: Community Science & Tech

As sea levels rise, accurate tide predictions and observations that tie water levels to flood impacts are two key pieces of information needed to inform coastal management and resilience plans. Our Climate Center team aims to address these needs by leveraging and installing new and innovative water level measuring technology in partnership with U.S. Harbors, and by engaging coastal community members to meet this challenge through community science efforts.

These efforts proved especially valuable during a historic storm on December 23rd, 2022, which aligned with high spring tides. Dedicated community members braved the storm to document flooding and upload their photos to the coastal flooding project on our Ecosystem Investigation Network.

Our sea level rise scientists paired this community-gathered data with local water level measurements from new tide gauges in Saint George, the Boothbay peninsula, and Portland to improve our understanding of what sort of flooding impacts we can expect in the future as water levels continue to rise — and which areas are most vulnerable when storms and tides combine.

In addition to installing new tide gauges and launching community science efforts, members of our Climate Center team also designed a Community Resilience Training to support coastal communities in planning for sea level rise. The training is a three-part curriculum that facilitates experiences for communities to develop the knowledge, skills, and relationships that support community-based climate planning. The team, led by Municipal Climate Action Program Manager Gayle Bowness, just launched the first phase of this training with community members from North Haven and Vinalhaven in mid-December 2022.