New Jersey launches coastal resilience mapping tool

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) announced the launch of an online mapping tool to help coordinate projects needed to adapt communities to the effects of climate change.

The Coastal Ecological Restoration and Adaption Planning Tool (CERAP Tool) provides the locations of at-risk areas, coastal resource restoration sites, and other data. The tool will assist in the targeting, development and coordination of projects to handle rising sea levels, increased flooding and more severe storms association with climate change.

The tool was developed in partnership with Rutgers University’s Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis.

“Making our coastline and urban coastal areas more resilient will take many strategies, many of which will be implemented at the local level,” said Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette. “This tool will inform targeted, effective investments in restoration and resilience projects as part of our broader commitment to addressing climate impacts to New Jersey’s coastal communities.”

Among its many attributes, the tool will help in the development of storm and flood-protection projects that will protect communities in addition to resource restoration and nature-based solutions to mitigate climate change impacts, such as projects that maximize carbon sequestration and shoreline stability. Data obtained from the tool may also be used to provide supporting documentation for applications for federal and state funding opportunities.

“This mapping tool supports the state’s Climate Change Resilience Strategy by equipping coastal municipal planners and our non-profit partners with a resource to coordinate coastal restoration projects that support community resilience, ecosystem health, and carbon sequestration,” said NJDEP Chief Resilience Officer Nick Angarone.

The mapping tool can be used to evaluate the need for and plan the location of appropriate intervention strategies and tactics by displaying the magnitude of location-based stressors, also referred to in the tool as Issues of Concern. Through consultation with regional stakeholders and experts in New Jersey’s coastal ecosystem, eight primary stressors were identified. These include coastal ecosystem degradation and habitat loss, shoreline erosion, coastal flood damage, nuisance flooding, coastal storm damage, water quality degradation, loss of carbon sequestration and social vulnerability.

Additionally, the map contains two more layers; one featuring past, current, or proposed coastal resilience projects with details on project type, funding status, goals and sponsor, and another layer featuring broader areas of local and regional concern where additional action could be taken to protect at-risk resources.

These new datasets, when combined with a variety of existing data on locational vulnerabilities, natural resources, societal factors and ownership data, create a holistic view of the state’s coastal environment.

“One of the results of this effort is a mapped catalogue of sites and projects to help inform the DEP and others on where resources could be allocated for future projects,” said Richard Lathrop, Director of Rutgers University’s Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis and one of the project’s leads. “The initial nomination process represents a bottom-up approach to harness local knowledge about problem areas in our coastal zone and to also identify gaps where there might be issues that haven’t been recognized.”

Other uses of the tool include assessing areas for restoration to address existing or future threats; evaluating proposed acquisition sites for flood threats, habitat vulnerability and water quality attributes; determining the vulnerability of proposed restoration or enhancement projects; and leveraging existing work by looking to combine past restoration efforts with new actions.