Demonstrating the Utility of a New 3D Benefit: Cost Tool for Adaptation to Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge

In summer 2011 the US EPA's Climate Ready Estuaries program awarded funds to the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership in coastal New Hampshire to further develop and use COAST (COastal Adaptation to Sea level rise Tool) for sea level rise adaptation planning. The New England Environmental Finance Center (EFC) worked with municipal staff, elected officials, and other stakeholders to select specific locations, vulnerable assets, and adaptation actions to model using COAST. The EFC then collected the appropriate base data layers, ran the COAST simulations, and provided visual, numeric, and presentation-based products in support of the planning processes underway in both locations. These products helped galvanize support for the adaptation planning efforts, and demonstrate utility of this new GIS based approach to community engagement for cost-benefit analysis of adaptations municipalities might take in response to sea level rise (SLR) and storm surge (SS).