New Federal Actions in Resilience and Climate

A busy time for the federal government! First, the 2014 National Climate Assessment has been released.  This is the third NCA and it details how climate change has already been observed around the United States. The NCA includes chapters that focus on specific geographic regions, economic sectors, and indigenous people. You can directly view the Northwest regional chapter here. The White House has also put out press releases that break observed climate change down even further by state. The Washington press release is here and is worth a look. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is seeking lead and partner institutions to form a Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence. You can view one of those calls here on grants.gov, or go to our grants calendar for more information. Thirdly, the NOAA Ocean Service has released a “road map” for the next 3-5 years, showing how NOAA will take action on: •Coastal resilience: preparedness, response, and recovery •Coastal intelligence •Place-based conservation The road map is a great window into the new Office for Coastal Management (OCM), the new combined OCRM/CSC. OCM is lead on important outcomes under the Coastal Resilience priority, plays a solid supporting role in coastal intelligence and place-based conservation priorities (although is lead on the place-based outcome related to “Ecosystems Service Valuation” on p. 14).