How the National Estuary Programs Address — Recurring Extreme Weather Events

Estuaries face unique impacts from recurring extreme weather events that threaten the health of the estuary’s watershed, coastal wetlands, estuarine habitats, and important infrastructure. Extreme weather events that affect estuaries include, but are not limited to, hurricanes, rain and snow storms, droughts, wildfires, heat waves, polar vortex, and tornadoes. Under Clean Water Act Section 320, Congress identified nine “urgent, emerging and challenging issues that threaten the ecological and economic well-being of the estuaries”. These include stormwater runoff, accelerated land loss, flooding that may be related to sea level rise, extreme weather, or wetland degradation or loss. Clean Water Action Section 320 requires local National Estuary Programs in their Comprehensive Conservation Management Plans to “address the effects of recurring extreme weather events on the estuary, including the identification and assessment of vulnerabilities in the estuary and the development and implementation of adaptation strategies.”

NEP Approach/Success Stories

On this page:

Assessment and Planning
Restoration
Water infrastructure / Green infrastructure / Stormwater / Nonpoint sources
Monitoring and Research
Financing
Adaptation Plans
Vulnerability Assessments

Assessment and Planning

San Juan Bay Estuary Program (SJBEP): In October 2019, the SJBEP spearheaded the development of the first-ever Multijurisdictional Hazard Mitigation plan in collaboration with nine municipalities within the NEP’s study area: Bayamón, Canóvanas, Carolina, Cataño, Guaynabo, Loíza, San Juan, Toa Baja, and Trujillo Alto. This effort directly supports several actions outlined in its Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP), emphasizing integrated, watershed-based strategies to enhance the estuary's resilience to natural hazards. Plan will conform with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) guidelines and ensure projects are eligible for FEMA funding so municipalities can apply for this funding. It is expected that the Plan will be completed by December 2025.

Albemarle-Pamlico NEP (APNEP): In 2020, the APNEP started partnering with the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs to work with tribal communities in the region to develop a strategy for incorporating resilience into tribal planning and community engagement processes. The project will also involve an analysis of tribal engagement in resilience planning efforts around the U.S. as well as assistance from the Virginia Coastal Policy Center coordinating with state agencies and tribal communities in Virginia.

Restoration

Buzzards Bay NEP (BBNEP): In 2019, the BBNEP started collaborating with scientists and managers in two studies to evaluate impacts from recurring extreme weather events coupled with changes in mean sea-level elevation on salt marshes, and potential adaptation and management strategies. In the second salt marsh resiliency project, funded by SNEP, the Buzzards Bay NEP is supporting scientists from the Woodwell Climate Research Center (formerly the Woods Hole Research Center), USGS, and Buzzards Bay Coalition, as well as natural resource managers and conservation organizations. In this study, there search team will investigate a potential mitigation technique called runnelling for slowing salt marsh loss.

Coastal and Heartland NEP (CHNEP): The CHNEP worked with communities to help them draft and implement adaptation plans for impacts from recurring extreme weather events, such as the first one in SW Florida done for the City of Punta Gorda in 2009 and recently updated. The CHNEP worked with the City and other non‐governmental partners and volunteers to help implement some of the measures to date ‐ including multiple created oyster beds along the City’s shoreline into Charlotte Harbor to buffer storm surge.

Peconic Estuary Partnership (PEP): In the mid-2010's the PEP started using available vulnerability risk assessments and habitat quality assessment tools to help decision makers not only decide which lands to acquire, but also evaluate which adaptation strategy to impacts from recurring extreme weather events is appropriate. Tools like this have been the basis for prioritizing wetland restoration projects in Peconic’s Habitat Restoration Plan. In 2019, PEP worked with local partners to complete the estuary’s first living shoreline project on Peconic Land Trust’s Widow’s Hole Preserve. It will be monitored to assess efficacy in providing storm resilience and coastal habitat, and the changes in shoreline elevation over time.

Santa Monica Bay National Estuary Program (SMBNEP): The SMBNEP has engaged in various initiatives to address impacts from recurring extreme weather events to Santa Monica Bay and Los Angeles over the last decade.

Through a U.S. EPA Climate Ready Estuary (CRE) grant, SMBNEP and researchers from Loyola Marymount University conducted a study of impacts from recurring extreme weather events on coastal wetlands. The study analyzed future conditions of coastal wetlands in Los Angeles. To do so, the team used climatic and hydrological models to simulate the impacts of various sea level and precipitation scenarios.

The results of these models are being applied to the alternatives in the Environmental Impact Report (EIR)/ Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the 600-acre Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve.

The reserve is important regionally as a stop-over for the Pacific Flyway, and restoring it will help offset the 97-percent loss of coastal wetlands in Los Angeles. The ecological restoration is being conducted with a modeled 3-foot rise in sea level by the end of the century. The contours and other features of the project will allow for the transgression of habitats as the complex experiences greater inundation while providing flood protection for the neighboring communities of Venice and Marina Del Rey.

The SMBNEP helped to convene a partnership of eleven local coastal jurisdictions and organizations to launch the regional AdaptLA Project. Funded by a grant from the State Coastal Conservancy and Coastal Commission, this multi-year project will gather data and model future coastlines. The application of this work is to determine coastal vulnerability to:

sea level rise;
increased wave heights;
more intense precipitation;
storm surges; and
El Niño Southern Oscillation.

The outputs of this work informed coastal municipalities and related agencies via a series of webinars, workshops and outreach to their constituents.

In 2016, the SMBNEP received additional EPA funding to install high-precision, high-frequency pH and pCO2 sensors with the LA County Sanitation District project partners. The sensors provided continuous measurements of ocean acidification (OA), helping SMBNEP understand the vulnerabilities to estuarine health based on intensity and trend of OA in Santa Monica Bay compared to other locations along the West Coast.

With this information, project partners explored how OA is affecting the amount, health and distribution of marine life. Lastly, these findings helped the team assess the need for the reduction of nutrients into Santa Monica Bay, from sources such as sewage treatment plants, urban runoff and aerial deposition.

Water infrastructure / Green infrastructure / Stormwater / Nonpoint sources

Tampa Bay Estuary Program (TBEP): The TBEP partnered with the University of South Florida and local utility operators to implement a vulnerability assessment tool for wastewater treatment plant, sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs), extreme rainfall and sea level rise. Combining historical precipitation records with records of SSO date and volume a statistical model was developed to assess future risk of large SSOs. The model was applied to accepted projected sea level values using a Monte Carlo methodology, yielding the future probability of overflow events in coming years. Information like this is essential to plan for and manage threats to water quality. An open science dashboard displaying the project findings was completed in 2020 followed by a peer-reviewed journal article in 2021.

Puget Sound Program (PSP): The PSP worked with The Nature Conservancy to support the acceleration of integrated floodplain management in the basin, supporting both flood resilience and improved habitat corridors and water quality for salmon and other resources. The state now funds the Floodplains by Design program at $20 million per biennium.

Monitoring and Research

Tampa Bay Estuary Program (TBEP): The TBEP partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey to develop and deploy of two ocean carbon systems for monitoring coastal acidification parameters within the Tampa Bay estuary and nearshore Gulf (approximately 60 miles offshore). The project examined diurnal and seasonal fluctuations in coastal acidification parameters to assess the effects of seagrass recovery on seawater chemistry. The project was completed in 2023 and addressed specific CCMP actions. The Tampa Bay estuary site continues to be maintained by the USGS.

Barnegat Bay Partnership (BBP): In 2016, BBP deployed in-situ, autonomous pCO2 and pH sensors to determine if coastal acidification is negatively impacting the shellfish restoration and aquaculture efforts that are happening in the area. Hard clams (Mercenaria mercenaria) are the subject of both wild harvest and aquaculture, while eastern oysters are an expanding aquaculture product in the estuary. Both clams and oysters are the focus of restoration efforts due to reduced wild populations compared to historic levels.

Long Island Sound: In 2019, the Long Island Sound Study sponsored the development of a strategic plan and program to detect risk and vulnerabilities in Long Island Sound estuarine and coastal ecosystems from recurring extreme weather events. The program is a multidisciplinary, scientific approach to provide early warnings of impacts from recurring extreme weather events and develop processes to facilitate appropriate and timely management decisions and adaptation responses.

The program will base the early warnings on assessments of indicators and sentinels related to recurring extreme weather events. Moreover, the program’s approach is novel in that it combines regional-scale predictions and stressors with local monitoring information to identify candidate sentinels of change.

Tampa Bay Estuary Program (TBEP): The Critical Coastal Habitat Assessment is a long-term monitoring program to detect changes in critical coastal habitats as a result of sea level rise, increasing temperatures, shoreline hardening, and coastal development patterns.

Monitoring locations were selected in each of the major bay segments and two tidal river locations that have a full complement of emergent tidal wetland communities, including the following:

Mangrove
Salt marsh
Salt barrens
Coastal uplands

Consistent with the Habitat Master Plan (2020 Update), assessments are completed approximately every five years using the methods vetted by the Technical Advisory Committee. This project is part of a larger effort to manage, restore and protect the mosaic of coastal habitats critical to the ecological function of the Tampa Bay estuary into the future.

Financing

Casco Bay Estuary Partnership (CBEP): In 2020, the CBEP started to co‐sponsor a Financing Resilience Workshop Series, with the New England Environmental Finance Center and Maine Department of Environmental Protection, for municipal officials on financing storm resilience and stormwater‐related projects. The workshops provides training to local officials and gather information on the barriers they face when applying for grants to address resilience needs including impacts from recurring extreme weather events. Findings will be shared with the Maine's Council addressing impacts from recurring extreme weather events and members of Maine’s network of providers working on storm resilience.

Adaptation Plans

Sarasota Bay Estuary Program (SBEP): In 2014, the EPA’s Climate Ready Estuaries (CRE) program prompted SBEP (located in Florida) to collaborate with Mote Marine Lab to develop the Sea Level Rise Adaptation Planning Guide. The guide provides information about basic considerations and tools to adapt to sea level rise. The audiences for the guide include the following:

Local community leaders
Planners
Resource managers
Concerned individuals

The SBEP also managed the creation of a regional Sea Level Rise Visualization Tool. The tool demonstrates projections of flooding associated with varied levels of sea level rise, in addition to storm surge effects.

The SBEP continues to engage the local community on sea level rise adaptation and resiliency planning.

Vulnerability Assessments

Coastal and Heartland National Estuary Partnership (CHNEP): In 2016, the EPA Climate Ready Estuaries (CRE) program provided assistance to CHNEP and partner Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council to developed a comprehensive report that evaluating vulnerabilities from recurring extreme weather events in southwest Florida. This included:

assessing vulnerabilities from recurring extreme weather events;
developing and implementing adaptation strategies;
engaging stakeholders; and
sharing lessons learned.

The team used the latest scientific information in developing the report.

In addition, the partnership developed key tools that local governments can utilize. These resources include:

model language for local government adaptation plans to recurring extreme weather events;
a list of climate stressors and environmental indicators; and
a conceptual ecological model for vulnerabilities and risk of recurring extreme weather events.

The partnership also teamed with the city of Punta Gorda (in Lee County, Florida) to develop an adaptation plan that reflects citizen input and community priorities. In its role, CHNEP held public workshops and facilitated the planning process, which included analyzing the city's vulnerabilities to recurring extreme weather events, and developing mitigation strategies and adaptation techniques, as well as an implementation framework for the identified actions.

The plan underwent public, city staff and council review before it was unanimously accepted in November 2009. The adaptation plan serves as a sourcebook of ideas to make the city more resilient. Further, the city’s adaptation planning model subsequently served as a model for Lee County’s government.

These communities are taking on the complex, long-range impacts from recurring extreme weather events with plans that provide a basis for incremental actions. This approach can make a significant difference in the long run without tremendous upfront costs. Punta Gorda's plan includes a total of prioritized acceptable and unacceptable adaptation options as defined through group consensus.

Moreover, Punta Gorda's plan indicates which areas will retain natural shorelines and constrain locations for certain high-risk infrastructure. The community has the data and analysis, as well as a framework to consider the menu of adaptation options that make sense at any point in time.