November 20, 2012
Akshay Deverakonda, Intern, US EPA, for the Smart Growth Network

Coastal communities represent some of the fastest growing types of communities in the nation. While the overall population in the United States has grown by 52% between 1970 and 2010, the collective population of coastal communities has grown by 109% between the same years. As communities have expanded into and along coastal habitats, they face a greater risk of flooding, erosion, and other issues endemic to coastal environments. Climate change exacerbates these hazards, meaning that as communities grow, they have to include contingency plans for disaster events. Fortunately, there are many organizations and institutions that can help towns and cities along the coast integrate hazard mitigation into their comprehensive plans.

But as more organizations form, a thorny problem has also arisen: they have to compete against each other for funding and resources from land grant programs and federal agencies. Given that these organizations often provide the same services, then why not work together? Heather Wade and Kristin Hicks describe an example of this kind of collaboration in their paper, "Organizational Collaboration to Help Address Coastal Community Growth." They highlight two groups: the Texas Sea Grant Program and the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS). The Texas Sea Grant program helps communities balance environmental management with economic development, while NERRS focuses on providing coastal state officials with the most up-to-date information for coastal planning. The two groups recently formed a partnership to provide coast development technical assistance to communities. This newfound partnership has already started to reap benefits, as Wade and Hicks describe: "The collaboration between Texas Sea Grant and the Mission-Aransas NERR on the Community Resilience Index has had some positive outcomes, even at this early stage. Following the administration of the resilience index to the community of Port Aransas, TX and the follow-up workshop, the city updated its hazard mitigation plan to include measures that would address some of the resiliency issues discussed during the workshop. The community of Ingleside, TX has started the process of joining the Community Rating System as a result of the workshop, and reached out to the Mission-Aransas NERR and Texas Sea Grant for assistance in distributing informative materials on hazard preparation and hurricane evacuation." This is just the starting point: the Texas Sea Grant/Mission-Aransas NERR partnership is expanding into larger cities in coastal watersheds, not just along the coast, and is starting to provide other coastal development services. Thanks to the power of collaboration and teamwork, this partnership is a model for other individuals and groups looking to make a difference in people’s lives in coastal communities. How else can institutions and individuals work together to advance hazard mitigation? How can human change mitigate and overcome climate change? Please leave your ideas, thoughts, and comments below.