City Planning Includes Updated Resilience Strategies

The Takeaway: A $425,000 NOAA award provided the resources needed to identify vulnerabilities and develop evacuation plans, revise stormwater management plans, and implement living shorelines. Also created—a vulnerability index map for all 239 coastal municipalities.

Community assets are vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal flooding. This project identified vulnerabilities and prioritized new strategies for improving resilience, such as developing evacuation plans, revising stormwater management plans, and considering the use of living shorelines. Local implementation included updating the master plan for Burlington City and the Hazard Mitigation Plan for the Borough of Sea Bright. Nature-based shoreline protection strategies also were introduced to Maurice River Township and Little Egg Harbor Township.

This NOAA award of more than $425,000 provided the tools, information, guidance, and technical assistance needed for the task. Project partners completed a Coastal Vulnerability Index Map for all 239 coastal municipalities in the state. Existing decision-support tools (the New Jersey Flood Mapper and the Getting to Resilience tool, for instance) were enhanced to provide additional user-friendly guidance. Two documents were developed: the Municipal Coastal Vulnerability Assessment and the New Jersey-specific Municipal Resiliency Actions Guidance. These documents served as the impetus for reviewing and enacting new policies. (2017)

Partners: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Coastal Management Program