Projects

Resilience Extension Specialist Transition

End Date: 8-31-2022

Objectives

  • Continue to serve existing northern Gulf regional network and existing efforts
  • Provide leadership in outlining future national-level Sea Grant community resilience priorities based on lessons learned from the Sentinel Site Pilot program
  • Work with the Sea Grant network and the National Sea Grant Office to achieve the identified community resilience priorities

Methodology

As part of a team of resilience specialists in the Sea Grant network, the Program Coordinator for the NGOM SSC (Collini) will take on the broader role of a Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Coastal Climate Resilience Specialist. The Specialist will continue to facilitate access to sea level rise information, models and tools, and build the capacity of stakeholders and decision makers to apply these resources to protect coastal communities and ecosystems. In addition, the Specialist will work with the Sea Grant network to share this information broadly and help to identify existing information, services, tools, and products that can be transferred to other Sea Grant programs, networks, communities of practice and stakeholders.

The Specialist will participate in Sea Grant national and regional meetings to engage others in the network, and help to outline future national-level Sea Grant community resilience priorities and approaches based on their previous work, the national Sea Grant Strategic Plans, and any relevant Sea Grant vision plan implementation. The Specialist will also commit to being part of a NOAA Science webinar series to share their work across NOAA, the Sea Grant network, and other interested partners.

Per proposal guidance, the new Sea Grant resilience extension specialists’ priorities are to:

  • Continue to serve their existing regional networks and existing efforts to better achieve our common goals of coastal resilience.
  • Provide leadership in outlining future national-level Sea Grant community resilience priorities and approaches based on their experience and lessons learned from the Sentinel Site Pilot Program.
  • Commit to working with the Sea Grant network and the NSGO lead to achieve these goals.

Actions to address Priority 1: continue to serve existing regional networks and existing efforts to better achieve our common goals of coastal resilience The NGOM SSC has developed award-winning resources, extensive Extension programming, and supported targeted applied research to address critical coastal resilience issues, gaps, and needs around coastal flooding, sea-level rise, and climate change. These efforts have enhanced resilience conversations and actions in the region across multiple sectors including natural resource stewardship, Extension and outreach, utility services, city and county planning, floodplain management, and coastal residents.

Specific impacts include consideration of future flood conditions in the construction of and adaptation of new and existing buildings, infrastructure, restoration projects, and conservation acquisitions. Additional, non-tangible enhancements that were cited within the NGOM SSC review include a sense of understanding and empowerment among built and natural resource stewards of how to utilize the available tools and resources. Further, the NGOM SSC staff have served as a capacity multiplier for coastal cities and counties and regional partnerships.

  • To continue to serve the partners and stakeholders across the region (Pearl River – Suwannee River: coastal MS, AL, and nw FL), the Specialist will continue to:
  • formally and informally assess stakeholder science, observing, and management needs around SLR and coastal flooding.
  • Identify and secure/support research, collaborations, and resources that can be leveraged to address identified gaps and needs.
  • Coordinate across the region to facilitate dialogue and awareness of changes to flood risk.
  • Directly and indirectly expand community capacity through trainings, grant writing, and one-on-on discussions based on individual community needs.

To transition the efforts and programming to continue supporting the partners and stakeholders under a more sustainable model that is housed within the Sea Grant family, the Specialist will lead the following activities in combination with partners and the Management Team:

  • Assessment of needed changes to the branding (e.g., logo, name, etc.) and messaging describing the programming and efforts (previously the NGOM SSC).
  • Utilizing the existing NGOM SSC Implementation Plan as a model, develop a Strategic Plan that o refines a vision, mission, goals, and participants for the partnership.
    • Clearly defines the partnership’s role as a Sea Grant program.
    • Outlines anticipated contribution to broader resilience across the region o process for determining actions and efforts to enhance resilience.
  • Strengthen relationships with Florida Sea Grant specialists and leadership to complement and coordinate with ongoing activities as has been done in MS and AL through o adding a FL Sea Grant representative to the Management Team and o participating in the FL Climate WAG.
  • Continued bi-monthly calls among the Management Team to advise and direct the above activities.
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Actions to address Priority 2: provide leadership in outlining future national-level Sea Grant community resilience priorities and approaches based on their experience and lessons learned from the Sentinel Site Pilot Program & Actions to address Priority 3: commit to working with the Sea Grant network and the NSGO lead to achieve these goals The NGOM SSC and the other Sentinel Site Cooperatives have been enhancing community and ecosystem resilience through partnerships and leveraged opportunities for six years, gaining valuable insights, lessons learned and best practices.

The Coordinators of each program have identified and tackled regionally-specific and nationally-universal challenges around a multitude of relevant topics including building and maintaining partnerships external to a single project or effort and addressing difficult topics related to climate change in a wide variety of settings and sectors. In keeping with the new Sea Grant resilience extension specialists’ priorities to, “provide leadership in outlining future national-level Sea Grant community resilience priorities and approaches based on their experience and lessons learned from the Sentinel Site Pilot Program” and work with “the Sea Grant network and the NSGO lead to achieve these goals” the Specialist will participate in regular meetings with the Resilience Extension Specialists from other regions and the NSGO lead.

The Specialist will also share best management practices, lessons learned, and tools created with the broader Sea Grant Network through:

  • Targeted webinars and workshop, such as the OneNOAA Webinar Series.
  • Engagement with network-spanning teams and processes, including Network Visioning Groups and the National Climate Network.
  • Participation in network-spanning events, such as Sea Grant Week, regional gatherings of Sea Grant Programs and professional conferences that draw significant Sea Grant participation. 
  • Representing Sea Grant as a leader in community and stakeholder Extension work to organizations and entities within and external to NOAA.

Anticipated Outcomes The Sentinel Site Program Pilot Program provided very concrete advantages to both the local partnership in each region and across the broader regional and national networks in which the Cooperative Coordinators participated. The anticipated outcomes from transitioning the efforts from the programs are:

  • Continued strong and productive collaborations across the region that address critical aspects of coastal community resilience and ecosystem health.
  • Enhanced programming and efforts that better align with and address holistic community resilience and ecosystem health needs.
  • Integration of the benefits from the Pilot Program (tools, approaches, lessons learned) within regional and national Sea Grant networks and programming, enhancing national resilience efforts.

Rationale

In 2014, Sea Grant partnered with NOAA’s five Sentinel Site Cooperatives to test a regional strategy of applying the broad suite of NOAA’s observational and management capabilities to address issue related to sea level impacts on coastal resources and communities. The Cooperatives facilitated access to sea level rise information, models and tools, and built the capacity of stakeholders and decision-makers to apply these resources to protect coastal communities and ecosystems. The five Cooperatives leveraged NOAA and non-NOAA assets and infrastructure along with partners, research, and products to engage their communities on issues of sea-level rise (SLR). The Cooperatives worked with NOAA and other federal agencies, along with state and local partners.

The hallmark of the Sentinel Site Program was to more effectively coordinate existing efforts to better achieve our common goals of coastal resilience. The five Sentinel Site Cooperatives were recently reviewed and found that topically they provided great benefit at local, state, regional, and national scales; however, there was a need for a more sustainable model by housing the program under a specific NOAA entity. Sea Grant was determined to be the best home for the work conducted by the Cooperatives.

This proposal is in direct response for a transition plan over the next two years to integrate the Extension programming and efforts, lessons learned, and best practices from the Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative (NGOM SSC) within the Sea Grant resilience portfolio.