EPA Climate Ready Water Utilities Initiative Releases Storm Surge Inundation Map

Interested in knowing more about how storm surges can affect communities along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts?  EPA has just posted a new Storm Surge Inundation Map that can help.
The Storm Surge Inundation Map is an interactive map that illustrates the current worst-case storm surge and inundation scenarios on the American Gulf and Atlantic coasts, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  The map combines data layers from FEMA 100 and 500 year flood maps as well as NOAA’s Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH) and National Hurricane Center’s coastal county hurricane strike maps.  Explore the map on EPA’s website.
There are two additional climate- related tools that you may also be interested in exploring:

• Scenario-Based Projected Changes Map:  This online map provides easy access to localized scenarios of projected changes in annual total precipitation, precipitation intensity, annual average temperature, 100-year storm events, and sea-level rise from EPA’s Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool.  To explore local climate change projection data across the United States, simply zoom in on your location of interest or type a location into the search field of the map.  Climate change projection data within this map is provided by grid cell, illustrated as a square grid with 1/2-degree resolution, approximately 32 X 32 miles, for the United States.  Explore the map on EPA’s website.
• EPA Water Utility Climate Resilience Support Project:  EPA is initiating a nationwide effort to promote an understanding of climate risk and adaptation options within the water sector.  By working with a diverse set of individual utilities in a collaborative process, EPA will assist 20 water and wastewater utilities in conducting comprehensive climate related risk assessments using our Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool (CREAT). The assessments will identify utility-level adaptation strategies for implementation to bolster climate readiness and resilience.  A list of confirmed participating utilities can be found on EPA’s website.