NOAA’s Storm Surge Roadmap: a Coordinated Approach for Transitioning Research to Operations

1. NOAA’s Storm Surge Roadmap: a Coordinated Approach for Transitioning Research to Operations J. Feyen, M. Erickson, J. Rhome, M. Weaks and A. Taylor with NOAA’s Storm Surge Action and Planning Team 64th Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference

2. Overview • Why a NOAA Roadmap for Storm Surge? • Purpose of the Roadmap • Overview of the Roadmap • Coordinating with our partners • Interagency Working Group

3. The Imperative • Increasing Risks • Increasing coastal populations and sea level rise require more deliberate planning • Increasing Demand • Decision makers require fine-scale local information that communicates risk clearly • Improving Science & Technology • Surge modeling, the social science of decision making, information technology • NOAA Must Collaborate • Partner to organize and lead state of the art research and development while making best use of resources

4. Vision for NOAA’s Storm Surge Enterprise • Highly accurate, relevant and timely storm induced coastal inundation information, clearly communicated, which results in significant reductions in loss of life and ensures all coastal communities are optimally resistant and resilient to inundation impacts • Drive community planning to reduce risk to life and property • Train and educate population to respond to threats appropriately • Infuse state of the art science and technology to refine risk assessment and reduce unnecessary evacuations • Communicate street level impacts that result in appropriate personal and community response before, during and after the events

5. The Bottom Line • NOAA Must Provide: • Total Water Level (TWL) • Inundation depth products at street level • Actionable information to promote resilient and resistant risk-wise behavior Customers Ask: • How much water? • Where will it go? How close to my house? • When will it arrive, and how fast? When will it recede? • What is the impact on structures & ecosystem? • How often will it occur? • How should I respond?

6. Goals of the Roadmap • Total Water Level: Produce water level analyses, forecasts, observations, and products that include: • pre-storm forerunner, surge, tides, waves, fresh water inflow, speed, impact • Inundation: Provide information about the water depth over the land (inundation) to street level resolution • Communication Actionable Information: Deliver information that people act on • understandable, consistent information available in multiple formats • uncertainty, supports risk assessments, provides impact information, includes scenarios

7. Purpose of the Roadmap • Shows us our starting point and where we want to arrive • Effective approach to long-range planning; shows a path to the future • Effective for communicating and engaging across the agency, and with our partners • Bottom line: first-ever comprehensive effort to holistically address rapidly expanding problem and establish a community approach

8. Roadmap Structure Executive Steering Team Office Directors from NOS, NWS (D. Berchoff, M. Davidson, Z. Willis) Program/Portfolio Manager NOAA PM for Storm Surge Inter-agency, National Coastal Community Organizations Storm Surge Action and Planning Team PM, Office representatives NWS: Field, OCWWS, OH, NCEP, OST NOS: OCS, CSC, CO-OPS, IOOS, OCRM; OAR - NSSL

9. 3 Phase Approach Phase III (6-10 yrs) Implementation of new products and services within operations Continual Refinement Phase II (3-5 yrs) Research and develop new approaches; evaluate for transition to operations Phase I (0-2 yrs) Consensus building and quick wins to improve our products today; lay groundwork for longer term

10. Phase 1 Implementation Plan Summary • What do we deliver in Phase 1? • Move closer to TWL and improve operations • SLOSH with tides, extratropical ADCIRC (surge+tides), test ensembling • Improve access for customers • central website, social science studies, recovery best practices • Leverage community • grid catalogue, SDP NetCDF support, super-regional test bed • Prepare for future • NWS Surge Team, next gen modeling framework, forecast validation method

11. Coordinating at the Federal Level • Interagency Working Group (IWG) • under the auspices of the President’s National Science and Technology Council/Committee of Environment and Natural Resources/Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction (SDR) • Why SDR? • Facilitates U.S. Government and private/academic activities to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards • SDR already developed priority science and technology interagency actions for coastal inundation • Who? • NOAA, USACE, FEMA, USGS, DOT, DOE, NSF, EPA

12. IWG Purpose • Evaluate agencies’ coastal inundation research, data, and plans (underway) • Establish clear interagency roles and set priorities • Coordinate agency priorities, planning, and budget processes • Serve as the primary channel for communicating collective expertise and fostering sound policy • Bottom line: highly-visible/influential group tasked with advancing storm surge

13. Roadmap Summary • Intra-agency planning and coordination tool • Goals • Total Water Level • Inundation products • Communication of actionable information • Coordinates with partners on research and development • Federal alignment within IWG • You can inform us about users’ requirements; provide feedback, ideas, and support