The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Water Science Technology Board recently published a report urging the federal government to work with states to develop a national coastal risk assessment. Reducing Coastal Risks on the East and Gulf Coasts, commissioned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), says a national, long-term vision for addressing coastal risk is necessary to achieve benefits from federal investments. These investments are currently spread across several agencies that sometimes operate under conflicting mandates, often resulting in piecemeal approaches to problems and wasted resources.
The report says efforts in the U.S. to reduce coastal risk have been reactive, rather than proactive, noting that the federal government has assumed an increasing share of the costs of responding to coastal disasters, while local governments, developers and builders “reap the rewards of coastal development but do not bear equivalent risk.” Economic losses related to tropical storms and floods have tripled over the last 50 years.
The report recommends a benefit-cost approach, constrained by acceptable risk, as a good framework for evaluating coastal risk management investments. It also recommends stronger incentives at the local level to improve pre-disaster planning and mitigation efforts.
USACE is the primary federal agency responsible for building coastal flood management projects. Its work, however, occurs at a local level. Managing risks at the national level would require collaboration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and other federal agencies, as well as state and local governments and Congress, the report notes.