Coastal Resilience Resource Library
Guides and resources for supporting coastal hazards resilience efforts in Washington State
This page is intended to orient coastal hazards practitioners and stakeholders to the most relevant resources, tools, and guides available for engaging in coastal hazards resilience planning and management efforts in Washington State. Many of the resources listed below have been developed by local agencies and organizations. Some resources were developed by other state or federal agencies but nonetheless provide information that is highly relevant to the Washington State coastal hazards context. Use the filters provided to sort resources by topic.
Are you looking for coastal hazards-related information portals and interactive data mappers? Visit our Mappers & Visualization Databases page here.
Projected Sea Level Rise for Washington State
The Miller et al. (2018) projections describe potential changes in the long-term average relative sea level (i.e., over multiple years or decades), compared to the contemporary sea level. They describe a full range of likelihoods of future sea level changes and are designed for direct application to risk management and planning.
For more information: Visit our Sea Level Rise Projections page.
How to Choose: A Primer for Selecting Sea Level Rise Projections for WA State
This primer is designed to guide potential users of the 2018 sea level rise projections through the choices necessary to select and use sea level rise projections for their particular context. This includes selecting an appropriate time frame, weighing probability against risk, and choosing a high or low future greenhouse gas emissions scenario.
Published: 2020
> Click for direct download
Extreme Coastal Water Level in WA State: Guidelines to Support Sea Level Rise Planning
These guidelines are intended to be combined with sea level rise projections to support planning and assessment of future exposure to flooding along Washington’s coastline.
Published: 2019
Direct Download:
Extreme Coastal Water Level PDF
Guidelines for Mapping Sea Level Rise Inundation for Washington State
This material primarily aims to assist GIS professionals in developing maps of relative sea level rise inundation.
Published: 2018
Direct Downloads:
SLR Considerations for Nearshore Restoration Projects in Puget Sound
This document provides information for evaluating the extent to which nearshore restoration projects are likely to be resilient to sea level rise. It is intended to assist restoration planning and design processes.
Published: 2018
Direct Downloads:
Tools for Coastal Climate Adaptation Planning: Selecting Tools to Assist with Ecosystem-Based Climate Planning
This is a guide for selecting appropriate tools for multi-sector climate adaptation planning. It details the role of different tools in various planning processes and is intended for community planners and coastal natural resource managers.
Published: 2013
Direct Download: Coastal Climate Adaptation Planning
Adapting to Rising Tides (ART) Portfolio
The ART Portfolio provides helpful planning guidance, tools, and information for addressing climate change and sea level rise challenges. The framework is applicable to any geography. It was developed by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Comission with assistance from NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management.
ART provides useful resources on stakeholder engagement:
> Click to view resource
Adapting to Climate Change: A Planning Guide for State Coastal Managers
Developed by NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management, this guide provides a broad but useful rubric for coastal managers that are developing and implementing adaptation plans to reduce climate change impacts.
Published: 2010, NOAA
Direct Download: NOAA Planning Guide
Washington State Community-Based Coastal Resilience Planning Guidebook
This guidebook assists Washington’s shoreline communities in planning and implementing coastal resilience strategies and projects at the local level. It includes a stepwise guide and background info on community-based planning.
Published: 2020, WSG
Direct Download: Coastal Resilience Planning Guide
Sea Level Rise Considerations in WA Capital Grant Programs
This inventory of lessons learned explores efforts by state agencies in Washington to incorporate sea level rise considerations into state capital grant funding programs. This assessment identifies successes, challenges, needs, and opportunities.
Published: 2020, Ecology
Direct Download: SLR in WA Capital Grant Programs
Lessons Learned from Local Governments Incorporating SLR in Shoreline Master Programs
This report from Ecology shares lessons learned and case studies from communities in Washington that have taken steps to include sea level rise considerations in Shoreline Master Programs (SMPs). The report identifies success strategies, challenges, needs, and opportunities.
Published: 2021, Ecology
Direct Download: Lessons Learned: Sea Level Rise in SMPs
Identifying and Effectively Engaging Stake- and Rights-holders
Created by Resilience Metrics with support from NOAA, this document helps with identifying who potential stake- or rights-holders are, who the “right” ones are for a particular climate adaptation effort or project, why some stakeholders don’t engage in public processes, and what can be done to lower the hurdles to stakeholder participation.
Resilience Metrics Website: https://resiliencemetrics.org/
Promoting Nature-Based Hazard Mitigation through FEMA Mitigation Grants
This guidance document is intended for stakeholders pursuing FEMA HMA grants for nature-based solutions to mitigate risks associated with flooding (riverine and coastal) and wildfire. HMA grant programs can fund projects that mitigate other hazards, but this document is limited in discussion to flooding and wildfire.
Published: 2021, TNC
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Manual for Tsunami Vertical Evacuation Structures in Washington State
Washington State Emergency Management Division (EMD) developed this manual to help coastal communities navigate the process of building partnerships, conducting public engagement, planning, and determining funding options for vertical evacuation structures.
Published: 2018, WA EMD
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Earthquake and Tsunami Community Disaster Cache Planning Guide
This guide explores and discusses each of the four steps of the disaster cache development planning process necessary for creating feasible plans tailored to suit a community’s unique characteristics (e.g., population, geography). Includes worksheets, supply lists, and case studies.
Published: 2021 by Susan M. Graves. Prepared for Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Oregon Office of Emergency Management.
> Click to view document
NOAA Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper
This online visualization tool displays user-defined maps that show the people, places, and natural resources exposed to coastal flooding. The maps can be saved, downloaded, or shared to communicate flood exposure and potential impacts. In addition, the tool provides guidance for using these maps to engage community members and stakeholders.
Developed by: NOAA Office for Coastal Management
> Click to view tool
NOAA Digital Coast: Resources for Vulnerability Assessments
For communities looking to address potential impacts from coastal flooding, sea level rise, and severe weather, a good understanding of the people and places in harm’s way represents an important first step. This NOAA Digital Coast webpage provides a list of resources available for understanding and assessing vulnerability.
Developed by: NOAA Office for Coastal Management
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NOAA Introduction to Stakeholder Participation
This document briefly examines several important aspects of stakeholder participation in coastal management. While there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach, this guide presents a set of procedural elements common to many effective stakeholder participation projects, provides guidance on identifying stakeholders, describes common techniques, and discusses evaluation.
Published: 2015, NOAA
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Association of WA Cities Climate Resilience Handbook
The Climate Resilience Handbook provides basic information, resources, references, and examples regarding climate change and climate action planning, as well as hazard mitigation planning due to climate change. The primary audience are Washington’s cities and towns, though this information may be of interest and value to others involved in similar efforts.
Published: 2021, AWC
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International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-Based Features for Flood Risk Management
These guidelines from the US Army Corps of Engineers provide practitioners with the best available information concerning the conceptualization, planning, design, engineering, construction, and maintenance of natural and nature-based features (NNBF) to support resilience and flood risk reduction for coastlines, bays, and estuaries, as well as river and freshwater systems.
Published: 2021, USACE
> Download: Overview (150 p.)
> Download: Full PDF (1000 p.)
Heavy Precipitation Projections for the Pacific Northwest
This page provides tools and information that summarize projected changes in heavy rainfall events at local scales for the Pacific Northwest. The resources are designed to support both municipal and rural stormwater planning. The Extreme Precipitation Tool allows users to evaluate projections as a function of precipitation intensity, duration, and frequency.
Developed by: UW Climate Impacts Group
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Tribal Vulnerability Assessment Resources
Tribal nations have been actively engaged in efforts to understand climate risks to their natural and cultural resources, and what they can do to prepare. Together with a Tribal Advisory Group, the Climate Imapcts Group carefully selected a suite of resources that may be useful to tribes at each stage in the process of evaluating their vulnerability to climate change—from tribes just getting started to those well on their way.
Developed by: UW Climate Impacts Group
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Soft Shoreline Stabilization SMP Planning and Implementation Guidance
The purpose of this guidance is to assist local government planners and permit staff in Washington with planning and implementing shoreline stabilization provisions within Shoreline Master Programs. This guidance provides an introduction to common shoreline stabilization impacts and applicable regulations. It also describes the intent of soft stabilization management policies and identifies key considerations and challenges.
Published: 2014, Ecology
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Washington State Coast Resilience Assessment
This assessment examines the dynamics, interests, challenges, and opportunities related to resilience on the Pacific Coast of Washington State, based on 104 interviews with coastal tribes, stakeholders, agency staff, and others. It identifies approaches, processes, structures, and resources needed to enhance and support coast-wide resilience efforts.
Published: 2017, William D. Ruckelshaus Center
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NOAA Sea Level Rise Viewer
This web mapping tool can be used to visualize community-level impacts from coastal flooding or sea level rise (up to 10 feet above average high tides). Photo simulations of how future flooding might impact local landmarks are also provided, as well as data related to water depth, connectivity, flood frequency, socio-economic vulnerability, wetland loss and migration, and mapping confidence.
Developed by: NOAA Office for Coastal Management
> Click to view tool
Adaptation Strategies for Resilient Cleanup Remedies
This document provides guidance to toxic cleanup site project managers to help them 1) understand the risks to cleanup sites associated with a changing climate and 2) increase the resilience of cleanup sites at each phase of the cleanup process. These adaptation measures may increase the number of feasible cleanup options, maximize their integrity, and reduce their cost.
Published: 2017, Ecology
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Washington Coast Resilience Action Demonstration Project (RAD) Final Report
The RAD was a 2019-2021 partnership between the WA State Department of Ecology and Washington Sea Grant that piloted a multi-organization hazards resilience assistance team. The report describes the team’s work to advance locally driven hazards resilience projects and plans. Associated materials include an analysis of grant funding programs and a framework of resilience principles for coastal hazards projects.
Published: 2022, Ecology and WSG
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FEMA BRIC Application Best Practices & Recommendations
This “cheat sheet” provides best practices and recommendations for securing funding for natural/nature-based infrastructure projects through the FEMA BRIC program. It is based off of an analysis of successful BRIC applications. It is only 6 pages long and includes suggestions for benefic-cost analysis preparation.
Developed by: EDF and AECOM
> Click to read an introduction
> Click to view document
Washington State Geologic Information Portal
This application puts complex geologic and hazards information into an accessible format, allowing members of the public, community decision-makers, and technical professionals to to quickly compare and synthesize information relating to faults, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes along with other data (geology, resources, base maps) to help solve a variety of problems.
Developed by: WA State DNR
> Click to view portal
NOAA Coastal County Snapshots
This online tool provides an easy way to better understand county resilience in terms of flood hazards, critical facilities, jobs, businesses, and more. Choose a county and topic of interest and the tool automatically combines data sets to create county-specific insights. The resulting charts and graphics are easy to understand and can be used by community leaders and the public to understand where a county is most vulnerable.
Developed by: NOAA Office for Coastal Management
> Click to view tool
Social Vulnerability Assessment to Support Sea Level Rise Planning in the Puget Sound Region
To complement Washington Sea Grant’s parcel-level sea level rise vulnerability assessment for Puget Sound, NOAA developed a social vulnerability assessment for Puget Sound communities. The authors applied part of NCCOS’s vulnerability assessment framework through application of a regionally-modified Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) for Zip Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) within the Puget Sound drainage basin.
Developed by: NOAA NCCOS
> Click to read an introduction
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Sea Level Rise and Management Options for Washington’s Shorelines
This document examines trade-offs associated with various coastal management options that are likely to be considered for Washington’s shorelines as sea level rises. Specifically, this resource qualitatively assesses the costs, effectiveness, and social and ecological implications of hard defensive structures, softshore stabilization, accommodation approaches, and retreat and avoidance strategies.
Published: 2022, WSG and Ecology
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Puget Sound Parcel-scale Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Assessment
Between 2020 and 2022, a team from Washington Sea Grant and Coastal Geologic Services developed a quantitative sea level rise vulnerability approach for coastal parcels on Puget Sound. The goals of the project were to construct, calculate, and map a sea level rise vulnerability index.
Published: 2022, WSG and CGS
> Click to view project
Climate & Environmental Justice Screening Tool
The tool has an interactive map and uses datasets that are indicators of burdens in eight categories: climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution, transportation, water and wastewater, and workforce development. The tool uses this information to identify communities that are experiencing these burdens. Federal agencies use the tool to help identify disadvantaged communities that will benefit from programs included in the Justice40 Initiative
Developed by: Council on Environmental Quality
> Click to view tool
Willapa Erosion Mitigation Master Plan
In 2021, Pacific County received a grant through FEMA Cooperative Technical Partners (CTP) Program to develop a master plan for erosion mitigation of coastline. This master plan establishs a long-term vision (broadly supported by stakeholders) for mitigation of shoreline erosion along North Willapa shoreline and protection of built and natural
assets against coastal hazards.
Developed by: Moffatt & Nichol
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