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New in 2020: Click Here for NACCS Training Workshops

Through its Resilient Shorelines Grant Program, the Northeast Regional Ocean Council (NROC) funded the development of a database and web services that provide streamlined access to high-resolution data on coastal storm and flood risk in the Northeast. Produced by a team from RPS ASA, the database includes projections for future climate scenarios and is a valuable resource to support planning and preparedness by state and local government.

The data had been generated through the two-year North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study (NACCS) but were not widely available prior to this project. NACCS was an initiative of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to

  • provide a risk management framework, consistent with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/USACE Infrastructure Systems Rebuilding Principles, and
  • support resilient coastal communities and robust, sustainable coastal landscape systems, considering future sea level and climate change scenarios, to manage risk to vulnerable populations, property, ecosystems, and infrastructure.

As part of NACCS, the USACE developed several products, planning tools, and models to assist decision makers in applying the Coastal Storm Risk Management Framework. Those efforts included state-of-the-art atmospheric, wave, and storm surge modeling to characterize storm hazards in the North Atlantic region, including coastal areas of all NROC member states. Coupled numerical models simulated winds, waves, and water levels along the coast based on 1,050 synthetic tropical storms and 100 historical extratropical storms. The result was a large catalog of storm surge, wave heights, and extremal statistics derived from the model runs and stored at high-resolution stations along the coast.

The RPS ASA team conducted outreach to NROC state representatives to identify which elements of the extensive NACCS model outputs were most relevant to their needs and how the dataset could be delivered most effectively to support planning and management for coastal resilience. The target audience for the project was coastal managers, engineers, consultants, emergency management personnel, and habitat restoration practitioners involved in coastal hazard assessment and mitigation.

RPS ASA developed a PostgreSQL database and RESTful web services to access and display the NACCS data via the web. The database consists of model input/output and summary statistics at each of the approximately 19,000 save points and includes:

  • Peak storm surge and wind associated with each event
  • Peak wave height/period for each event
  • Storm tracks and associated parameters for 1,050 synthetic tropical cyclones
  • Annual recurrence interval statistics for storm surge and wave height

The database system is designed to connect easily to a range of web portals and online viewers hosted by NROC states:

For More Information:

Download:

ArcGIS Services: 

https://services.northeastoceandata.org/arcgis1/rest/services/NACCS/NACCS/MapServer 

NACCS API: 

http://docs.naccs.apiary.io/#[/one_half][one_half_last]

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Maximum Predicted Water Levels

100-Year Return Period Water Levels

100-Year Return Period Wave Heights

Storm Tracks

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Links to the NACCS Maps:

Maximum Predicted Water Levels
http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https://services.northeastoceandata.org/arcgis1/rest/services/NACCS/NACCS/MapServer?layers=show:0&source=sd

100-Year Return Period Water Levels
http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https://services.northeastoceandata.org/arcgis1/rest/services/NACCS/NACCS/MapServer?layers=show:1&source=sd

100-Year Return Period Wave Heights
http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https://services.northeastoceandata.org/arcgis1/rest/services/NACCS/NACCS/MapServer?layers=show:2&source=sd

Storm Tracks
http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https://services.northeastoceandata.org/arcgis1/rest/services/NACCS/NACCS/MapServer?layers=show:3&source=sd

Project Participants:

  • Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
  • Maine Coastal Program
  • Maine Geological Survey
  • Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management
  • New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services
  • NOAA Office for Coastal Management
  • Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems
  • Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council
  • University of New Hampshire